some people have -- I've cleaned over 1,000 pieces of malware from a single PC! Before calling in the big guns, though, you should download Malwarebytes Antimalware, and Superantispyware (both free for home users), install and run them. You might also need to download Rkill (available from Major Geeks Web site) and run it to kill malware processes that might prevent your other antimalware programs from running. There is also Roguekiller which does a similar process. Another tool which is very serious at getting rid of malware is Combofix. But beware -- this tool CAN damage your OS so it can't reboot. It also takes a long time to run as it goes through over 50 separate steps. But it is very good at killing common malware. It is updated almost daily and is available from Major Geeks as well. Of course, if you can't get on the Internet due to the malware slowing your machine down or interfering with Internet access, that won't help. You'll probably have to call in a tech support person. So you probably should download and install those programs NOW before you need them. Finally, don't use Internet Explorer, don't use Outlook or Outlook Express, and don't install Java on your system if you don't need it. The same applies to Adobe Reader -- there are free third party PDF readers that will do most of what you want to do with a PDF. If you do need these programs, make sure they are continually