Greetings everybody; please read my account, as I think all the details I can give will be useful.
I'm an average computer user who like many despise malware, viruses, trojans, and infections of any kind. When I browse the internet, I typically use Mozilla Firefox, but last night Internet Explorer launched by accident. (It was still pinned on the start menu when I wanted Word. Almost immediately, a trojan was detected by avast! Not too concerned, I allowed avast! to perform a boot scan, but my battery died.
Upon resuming on startup, Windows 7 declared the system needed repair - and I knew exactly why system was rendered unstable. After a system restore, as the computer did not know what was wrong, everything booted up and seemed to work fine. However, I noticed I could not freely access the internet and the system wasn't performing well. Opening avast!, I saw it said the service had been stopped or is in an inconsistent state. Re-installation has the scanners working, but that won't go away.
If I can count my blessings, if anything in this situation, it is the fact I am able to operate through Safe Mode w/ Networking at the moment and inform you of my problem. I have full access to the internet now, along with the command prompt, regedit, and potentially any other tools that can help me. Please help! I'm not sure what has infected me, but occurred at around 11:40 P.M. last night (July 31st, 2011) GMT -5.
Thanks in advance for your help. I'm performing a scan and so far I see nothing.