Pat, it only took you a couple hours to find me.

After weeks and weeks of batteling this problem I found a solution. I was that close to a total disk reformat and reinstall, but then tried one last thing which cost me ~$21 since the demo adware program only detected the problem and I needed to pay to get it removed, but it did it, which was well worth the cost. It is indeed malware and it is just a matter of finding the right adware program which does the job. Now I did not try them all, but I did try many of the free ones and they did not work until I was referred to ... wait for it, wait for it, Hitmanpro at http://www.surfright.nl/en combined with free TSSKiller at http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363

Now hitmanpro is claiming they can do it all, but I did use TSSKiller first based on advice to combine the two applications. If your still stuck we should likely chat via phone. Let me know.