Looking for a tool to sort out rogue processes

[MrLinus]

Pooh, the face that he said Microsoft services and that it's an adware/spyware issue would have suggested it's a Windows device. AFAIK, there is no wide-spread *nix adware (yet!)

I am almost positive you can do this with Hijackthis and ctrl alt delete tells most but yah that there should work for ya.

No. HiJackThis merely shows what's in the registry. CTRL+ALT+DEL might get you the TaskManager but often many processes are hidden from it's view. ProcessExplorer shows EVERYTHING. I've yet to see anything hide from it.

[nihil]

I think I understand the comments about Hijack This. I am running v.1.98.0 and there is an option "add checked to ignore list". This would prevent them being reported in future Somewhat similar to Winsonar.

Another product worth a look is Sentinel (at RuntimeWare.com), which is an integrity checker, application watcher and registry watcher.