Well gang, there's a new thing to deal with as far as the 'puter is concerned. It's called a "parasite." I spent a whole day removing these unwanted files, then found out about some free programs to do it for me. There were hundreds of these files. If you notice a lot of popup screens you probably have the thing.
This is not a virus and won't be spread that way. It is erroneously downloaded to your computer using various disreputable (like lying to you) tactics.

Here are some links to get more detail about this problem. The programs are AdAware and SpyBot.