Hi all,

This one has me baffled. Before I do a reinstall I thought I'd get some opinions/advice.

Recently my windows sidebar gadgets stopped working. The sidebar is running, but none of the gadgets will work or load properly. Most will load but not connect to the desired destination.

On further investigation I realized I cannot open my firewall either. My computer states it's on and functioning, and I can view the policy manager, but cannot access the allow/block list at all.

So, this stinks of a virus right?

I am currently running scans to no avail (avast, clamwin, etc). My system is coming up clean, although I can't run online scans for some reason (error with java?). Adaware found a malware or two, but nothing that seemed too critical.

Prior to figuring out the firewall doesn't work, I tried to repair vista via the repair console to no avail. System restore doesn't work as I don't have any restore points (strange as I never turned it off). I've tried several different suggestions via forums but am pretty much stuck.

The only thing I can think of is it has to do with uninstalling a program (Alcohol 120, ultraiso, or something), but other than that I can't figure out the issue. My computer is running great otherwise. Should I be concerned? What recommendations do you have?

To add to the problem, I upgraded to vista. So, I'm not sure how I'm going to reinstall if I have to. I read I can reinstall as a trial, and then upgrade over that?