Add/Remove Progs, Auto Update, MS Update inop

[Spycat]

Hello,

Seems a few problems have cropped up. I will list the symptoms below.
I feel they are related, since they have all started concurrently.

SYMPTOMS:

* In Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs will start to load, then gray-out after several seconds. No error ever pops up. Only by killing the process will it go away.

* Automatic Updates: Initially, I chose for updates to be automatically downloaded and installed. However, the icon in the task bar forever indicated that 0% has been downloaded. Also, isn't this icon supposed to bring up something when clicked? Mine doesn't.

* IE works fine, except when I go to the Microsoft Update site. When I do, IE freezes up, and can only be stopped by terminating the program.

MEASURES TAKEN:

* Did the usual virus/spyware scan stuff

* Disabled automatic updates

* Re-installed IE6

* Did sfc /purgecache followed by sfc
/scannow. Is this totally silent, because nothing was indicated as being replaces during these processes.

SPECS:

* MS Windows 2000, 5.00.2195, Service Pack 4

* Pentium 4 CPU, 1.80 GHz

* RAM: 1 gig

* IE Version: 6.0.2800.1106 SP1 (as you probably know, I can not update to IE 7 with a Win2K OS)

Can anyone offer some suggestions?

Thanks,
Rick

[Spycat]

UPDATE:

I just ran Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE and it found Alexa installed on my system, tho I do not recall authorizing it to do so (I thought as far as spyware went, Alexa was fairly..."benevolent"??)
After the removal, I was able to open "Add/Remove Programs" AND go to the Microsoft Update page. I chose the updates it found, clicked "Download", the D/L window came up, nothing started to D/L after several minutes so I killed the process...tried to go to the update site again, but re-experienced the prior issue of the page not loading and freezing up. Also, you guessed it, the "Add/Remove Programs" was acting up again as well.
Ran Spybot Search & Destroy in order to see if Ad-aware didn't totally delete Alexa, and it somehow regenerated itself.
Got this:

Alexa Related:
C:\WINNT\Web\RELATED.htm
Description
The "Show related links" function of Internet Explorer opens a Microsoft search page that redirects to Alexa. Alexa is known for the Alexa toolbar. As the Alexa toolbar is classified as spyware, the Alexa search page may collect too much user information as well.
If other products still detect Alexa after you have cleaned it with Spybot-S&D, it is a false alarm. Spybot-S&D does replace the file responsible for connecting to Alexa with one using the Google related function instead, instead of deleting the whole "Show related links" function.

OK...
Well, I rebooted, but the problems are still there.
Has anyone heard of/experienced Alexa causing these problems, or was this just a red herring and purely coincidental?

[Spycat]

UPDATE 2:

* I booted into safe mode and was able to access Add/Remove programs

* Ran "Tweaknow Powerpack", looked up at startup programs and saw:
Name: NCInstallQueue Location: All Users\Windows Registry\Run Once Path: rundll32 netman.dll;ProcessQueue

This option is UN-checked, meaning "Do Not Run".

Further:
In Start Menu I have both:

Windows Update:
Target: %SystemRoot%\system32\wupdmgr.exe

&

Microsoft Update:
Target: C:\WINNT\system32\rundll32.exe C:\WINNT\system32\muweb.dll,LaunchMUSite

Now, my educated guess is that the second, "Microsoft Update" is tied to the "rundll32 netman.dll;ProcessQueue".

Is it possible that "Microsoft Update" is trying to access rundll32 netman.dll;ProcessQueue, but since it is disabled...it hangs?

Should I TRY out this theory by checking the "Run Once" option?
(Truthfully, I do not remember ever un-checking it), or is all this I have typed in under "Update" totally unrelated?

Thx.