Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

I was just about to go to bed when an red alert shield thing pops up in my systray. "You have a virus!" it trumpets! I eye it fishily because it's not my AVG virus alert, but something calling itself "AntiSpywareXP2009.

Yep, I'd got myself a virus all right, the thing warning of the virus was the virus itself!

It thoroughly stuffed up my compy to the point I had to do a complete system recovery. Bad news, lost my emails again and various programs that I'd installed like Open Office and Firefox. Good news - have kept everything else. And all my music is on my iPod anyway :P I thiiink I've managed to remove the virus but I can't get AVG reinstalled, I am trying a download now. If that doesn't work, I'll have to get another free virus checker. Also, can anyone recommend a really good spyware removal tool? I used to use Spybot but can't find a download for it - it seems to be called AdAware now or something. Anyone recommend it?

ETA: Woo hoo! Didn't lose ANY of my emails. It appears the system recovery kept all the settings but the virus FUBAR'd all the .exe files of a few programs. However I thiiiink I'm all sorted now :)