Ok, so it's my own fault, but I thought others might wish to learn from my mistake.
I have strict internet cleanliness rules. I have blockers and cookie shreders and blacklists to hell and back. I have realtime virus scanners and all that jazz.
I also keep my windows updated and do scans with like five different programs every few days.
I've read around here before that sometimes Windows Update will fail to properly install some updates unless Explorer is the shell, so I have always set Explorer to shell before my Windows Updates. I also make it at this point in my routine where I run my scanners (since I'm not going to really be using it for awhile anyway).

Today I messed up my routine. I ended up running Ad-Aware with Litestep as the shell. I didn't even realize my problem when I was presented with two malware entries that were rated as dangerous off the charts. They were "Abetterinternet.nail" and "Windows".
Now I've known for years that Windows is malware, but I keep it installed anyway (haha). But the other one I know to be a VX2 varient that is really bad. So I clicked for them to be removed.
The next thing I clicked on crashed my computer.
After a reboot I was in Explorer Shell. My Litestep install is totally wasted. I tried to reinstall over it but that didn't work. I had to manually clean out the files and reinstall from scratch.
Doh.
So... note to everyone: If your scanner comes up with stuff... Set explorer to shell and run it again to see if it's still there before you baelete it.

The Windows entry is actually the one that did you in. Adaware detects what application is running as the shell and throws a fit if it isn't explorer because obviously you wouldn't want to change it. You should be able to set LS back as the shell and be ok. UNLESS, you went as far as letting Adware destroy the Malware which means you will have to reinstall a LS Build in the LS Folder as Adaware nuked parts of it.

Yeah, the second one was what happened. Like I said.. I screwed up. I let it nuke the files and so I didn't have them anymore.

I've got it all ok again by doing a full reinstall of LS. I ran adaware again just to see if it would hit on the same results and it did "abetterinternet.nail" and "windows". I told it to ignore them this time around. heh.

Does this information happen to be in a sticky that I missed? If not, it should be somewhere prominent for newbies that havn't realized how some of their anti-whatever programs work quite yet.

Dude, you are so paranoid it's freaky. You have waaaaay to much protection going on there. Heck I don't even have an anti-virus installed.

"abetterinternet.nail" is probably unrelated. As I run Adaware I don't have this installed so you may want to check into it. It is not in a sticky anywhere and you are the first person to mention it I believe since we reopened.

"abetterinternet.nail" points at the Litestep.exe. Started happening in Ad-Aware a few definitions ago. It's just a false-positive. Someone (razielad) should report that to lavasoft. ;)

Lol, thanks Xcal ;)

More testing has showed that both the "windows" pop and the "abetterinternet.nail" pop can be toggled by setting explorer as shell or litestep as shell. So they both seem to be related.
Yeah yeah.. I'll report it to lavasoft.

As for being paranoid: I have this strange desire to know what my computer is doing and why. Windows Genuine Advantage prompted several angry emails.
I use my personal information for lots of stuff on the net, so I want to make sure it stays within the places I want it to go, and if it doesn't, I want to know that it wasn't my fault and I can sue somebody. (Yay for the NEW American dream).

I didn't usedto be so paranoid about my computer. Then I got hacked/virused/malwared/etc. The first thing I noticed was that I crashed alot. Like once an hour. Then I noticed my system resources were being abused, even when I wasn't doing anything. I noticed the stuff I was TRYING to do wasn't getting done because it couldn't get any resources. Then I got an odd credicard bill. Odd means that I don't use said card very often and it was suddenly maxed.
I couldn't even clean the computer at this point it was so infected.
Then I got "paranoid". It's not paranoia when they REALLY ARE out to get you. heh.

i never quit litestep for anything and i've never had any problems. I really wonder why some people have problems with Adaware or some other programs and litestep oO