So Ad-Aware turned out to be the problem? Can't say I'm really surprised, since I had a suspicion that way when you mentioned you were using it. Especially since, a couple of weeks ago, I had an odd incident.
Pop-up came up, saying Ad-Aware needed to update, press "OK" to install. The problem is, I don't use Ad-Aware's AV - only their ad-blocker. (I prefer Avast AV - much more effective in my personal experience.) Before I let A-A do anything, I had Avast set up a save point. Good thing I did, since the putative "Ad-Aware" install acted just like those blasted "anti-virus" viruses from a few years ago - locked out Task Manager, started lots of suspicious hard drive activity, and wouldn't let me do anything else. When I finally broke into its activity, something like 95% of my files had "disappeared" - good thing I already knew about that trick; the file attributes had be set to "hidden". Fortunately, with Avast I had a system reset point that didn't depend on Windows's normal filing system, so the reset point hadn't been wiped. But it seems the virus-scammers have a new stalking horse in Ad-Aware. I've already e-mailed Lavasoft about the issue - it looked very legitimate, but this isn't their usual method of business. I encourage you to do the same, Gneech - these guys need to know about the problem before they can do anything about it.
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Pop-up came up, saying Ad-Aware needed to update, press "OK" to install. The problem is, I don't use Ad-Aware's AV - only their ad-blocker. (I prefer Avast AV - much more effective in my personal experience.) Before I let A-A do anything, I had Avast set up a save point. Good thing I did, since the putative "Ad-Aware" install acted just like those blasted "anti-virus" viruses from a few years ago - locked out Task Manager, started lots of suspicious hard drive activity, and wouldn't let me do anything else. When I finally broke into its activity, something like 95% of my files had "disappeared" - good thing I already knew about that trick; the file attributes had be set to "hidden". Fortunately, with Avast I had a system reset point that didn't depend on Windows's normal filing system, so the reset point hadn't been wiped. But it seems the virus-scammers have a new stalking horse in Ad-Aware. I've already e-mailed Lavasoft about the issue - it looked very legitimate, but this isn't their usual method of business. I encourage you to do the same, Gneech - these guys need to know about the problem before they can do anything about it.