I've been having problems downloading files since I used Ad Aware. Apparently I deleted (not just quarantined) something I shouldn't have, and even doing a system restore didn't help. I keep getting corrupt bits of files when unzipping, and it doesn't seem to matter how many times I re-download it. I have the current trial version of winzip, and it shouldn't be my connection because my laptop had no problems d/l the same file. Do I have some kind of virus I can't get rid of? Or was it me screwing up the system with the anti-spyware. Please help!

You would have had to set Adaware to not maintain the deleted spyware files in quarantine,a s they are retained by default. I do not think it was Adaware. Perhaps it is a corrupted WINZIP. Try using ALZIP, it is free. There is no expiry of the unregistered version, and I like it a lot better than WINZIP. It will unzip 30 different zip files including RAR files and it is very easy to use.

I was going to try that, but therein lies the problem, I can't download anything! It all ends up being "corrupted"! I'm really at a loss of what to do here.

I thought it was just zip files that you were downloading and then opening that you were having problems with. Have you restored the files that are in Adaware's quarantine? Have you uninstalled Adaware? Have you uninstalled WINZIP? What type of zip files were you downloading and opening when this happened? What virus scans have you used?

Did you scan the original file you tried to unzip with an antivirus program before you unzipped it? Of course, while I can't say for sure without seeing your logfile of what AAW targeted before you removed items, this sounds more like a virus. I've never heard of AAW affecting ability to download/unzip files. Have you tried running an online virus scan?

I did an online virus scan yesterday and it turned up nothing at all. I did restore the files that AdAware had quarantined, but I believe the first "batch" got deleted (my fault) and not just quarantined. I was able to download Winrar and use that to unzip a couples files but they also did not work, telling me that they were corrupted during download. And when installing Winrar some of those files were corrupted too, but they were just other language files so the program itself still worked. Let me say that acutally downloading files seems to be fine, but when I'm trying to install them, that's when it tells me they're corrupted. If it helps, I've also been unable to update Windows ME from Microsofts own site. Some updates worked, and some couldn't be installed, seemingly the same issue there.

Worst case scenario? Should I just save everything I need and then reinstall windows itself, start over? You can do that and it just erases everything? Or would I need to wipe out the hardrive somehow first?