The usefulness of HJT showed itself to me in the dorms this past school year. I would always have a usb key ready with adaware, spybot, a batch file with "shutdown -a" and a sasser cleanup tool.

Whenever I got an IM from someone asking to "fix their internet" (I work for dvd borrowing privledges ) I would update the ref files and cleanup tools on the key and head on over.

Safe mode, scan, safe mode / networking, scan, normal mode, scan and I'd would hope to be done. 4 times out of 5 however, something wouldn't be stopped. Viruses would be taken care of nicely it seems, but CWS and others are clever.

I haven't been doing spyware kind of work since this past year at school, but ad aware and spybot did next to nothing for hijacks when I did. Their definitions were rarely bleeding edge. I don't blame them though, CWS and otheres seemed to change really really often.