Kevin,
Thank you for the quick response.
I downloaded Zemana and tried to install it. However, I received an error after selecting the language to use:
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022), Click OK to close the application.
(the above message was displayed three times - that is, after clicking OK it appeared again. I clicked OK and it appeared one more time)
I seem to be in a catch-22 situation... I need to install malware software but whatever is affecting the laptop is stopping the install attempts (both for Malwarebytes and Zemana).
Thank you,
Al