Was having some real problems last week with an adware program on my laptop. It was Spymaxx, along with a host of other shitty bugs it started. 180solutions, 2020search, etc.
Essentially, it would give a pop-up every minute or so, saying -you're infected with spyware, come buy our shit to remove it - giving a fake spyware program for sale.
This was really a pisser. It disabled taskmanager, and system restore points, hijacked my desktop with an ad, and DL'd all kinds of crap.
..Tried adaware, no good. Tried Spybot, they came back. Spyware doctor...didnt work.
Even trying to back-door my way to retrieve a restore point was fruitless.
Finally, after much aggrivation, I found this. (home trial version)
SUPERAntiSpyware.com - AntiAdware, AntiSpyware, AntiMalware!
Ran the quick scan, did the fixes, and got rid of the popups. Then I rebooted, ran it again (full system scan this time), and as of last night I got my PC back.
Whew. - so far so good. I still really am not sure exactly how or where I picked it up, I think it may have been a strange email I opened? not sure.