None of the running processes seem particularly suspicious but I can no longer tell as task manager has died :-/
I use Eudora Light for one of my email addresses and webmail interfaces for the others. Don't use any spam killer although I get fairly minimal spam.
I'm pretty much resigned to format/reinstall right now, but I am curious about what might have gone wrong, and what caused the massive spawning of ashmaisv.exe
Thanks! Sorry it took me a while to reply, had to access other computer