SUCCESS!!! The only way, and I do mean the ONLY way I could nuke this ******* was to boot from my VISTA DVD, go to the repair option, open a command prompt, and delete the documents folder under my User profile. The download file finally shows empty...what a relief. I just hope there are no remnants left anywhere on my machine. I'll scan with every program I can think of, but I've done that while the file was there, and it didn't show any infections. One of the things I ended up doing in my quest to fix this headache was to enter a line under the command prompt that created a separate administrator logon on the opening screen. Anyone know how I can get rid of that so that the system boots directly into my profile? Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I really appreciate all the responses.