there are literally THOUSANDS of links that recommend solutions.. and there are also thousands of links that say other solutions don't work. Based on what I've read today all of the well known malware and virus removal products don't touch this.

I was hoping for personal testimony from somebody who had overcome this particular problem, not similar problems. PCMagazine's article didn't even offer a solution.

The majority of comments on Microsoft's forum say "reformat and reload Windows"

Every other similar problem I've researched in the past led to step by step instructions for removal, and those instructions were repeated in many places. I'm not seeing that today.