Hi Tony, and you're welcome.
Adaware will get some elements of CWS, but over at Lavasoft, they know about Shredder, and know that it really is the only tool that will rid a machine completely. There are a couple of variants (smartsearch being one) for which a complementary program has to be run first. This is because those that write CWS know a couple of ways to get around Shredder.
Those critical updates must be installed as well, or you'll get it back again. A firewall won't stop CWS, because by it's very nature, it has exploited the machine and granted itself permission to access the outside world. A firewall is absolutely essential, as is an up-to-date Anti-Virus program.. but they can only do so much.
Both Adaware and Spybot are very good programs and work well together. The problems that you state with them are quite possibly down to either the CWS hijack, or another peice of scumware, that has installed itself on your machine. There are literally thousands of programs and scripts written to make your (and everyone elses) life hell, and the more devious writers amongst them are able to disrupt those security programs, and keep their stuff on your machine. When people see that there are conflicts with these, they get rid of the good guys thinking that they are to blame.. a bit like leaving the door open on the car, so that you don't get a window broken by someone who wants your CD player. Usually you won't know of their existence in the computer until something goes wrong. At least CWS is fairly easy to spot.. most of the time!!!
The advice I posted in the sticky above will help to protect you, but I'd be happy to check your machine over for you, to see what else lurks. Click on the TechSupportForum's link in that article above, register (it's free and painless)
and download 'Hijack This!' from
here, unzip, and place it in it’s own folder, (not in the temp folder) doubleclick HijackThis.exe, and hit "Scan". When the scan is finished, click "Save Log", and copy and paste it in a reply.
This will give me a rundown of what’s going on in your PC.
Don’t fix anything yourself yet, as a lot of the stuff on that list will be harmless or required.
As you may have realised by my posts,
my time is mainly spent giving advice on security forums regarding spy/mal and adware, along with virus/trojan removal, and the prevention of the above, in the first place.
Hope that's enough info.. just ask if you need more.
EDIT: I've just changes the link for HJT as Merijn's site is down due to DDOS attacks at the moment.
Cheers
Liam