Hello again and thanks Mods for the advice. I did not include a log because the log shows nothing. I will do a manual update to se efi that makes a difference, but since I downloaded MBAM the day got the parasite it sould have been failrly current. The issue was that somehow the updater is still being blocked and I wanted to know if you had an insight into why. The "hosts" file was infected but now clean and I find no reg entries for the parasite. By now I have run various cleaners on in Normal and Safe mode and with the drive plugged to another PC's. The list is (in no particular order) AVG8, MBAW, MS Malicious Software Scanner, ClamwinAV, Win defender, Spybot, A-sqaured free, Comodo AV, Rising AV, NOD32, Spyware Doctor, Adware2007 - all current and updated versions - and as far as I can see the PC is clean. Since it was not an Internet PC, the MS updates had been ignored, but that is also remedied now with SP3 installed and all current updates (I set up the Internet on the PC AFTER I was sure the infection was gone SO THAT I could update MBAW). Despite all this MBAM, Comodo AV and Comodo BOClean will no update. Win updates, AVG, Clamwin and A-sqaured do. I also seem unable to download from COMODO. Maybe there is an excludelist somewhere I can't find *shrug*. I did not do any online scans as the PC was not originally connected (I mentioned) and I have doubts to the efficiency of these scans (not to mention that where I live we still have capped limits to downloads and slow connections). I note these things and the references above because in all cases the questioners was left hanging for a final solution (or didn't bother posting if they did get one.) I will continue to pursue a final insight. I see too many problems where the solution is "reload the PC" or "our product will sort it out" without an actual solution being pursued so forgive any argumentativeness that may cause offense. It is not good enough just to have a clean machine or everyhing sorted without also knowing why certain problems persist or occurred.