Ok let me be more clear.

The Infection: URL: MAL problem effects Firefire only it seems, and it only happens when my network is connected. It does not happen when the network is disconnected.

The SVCHOST issue seemed to be more IE problem, but it only happens sporadically. But it seems it was inbound and outbound, but I have not kept track of it and it is not happening enough recently to check.

I did try, just for the heck of it, to load Win 7 in safemood, I went through msconfig to do it, even though networking was enabled, it was not loaded properly and I could not access it, in addition AVAST only would protect via firewall, though that should have been enough. Anyway it doesn’t matter as I could not connect to the internet anyway.

So… Based on the above, do we still need to go through the process you outlined and PMed me above? Or is there some other way we can get rid of the malware?

Thanks!!!