I was waiting for BugBatter to reply here... but since it's been several hours and she hasn't: before considering a change/upgrade of operating system, you might want to see if you can fix the issue by following the directions/procedure listed here:   [URL]   before you say that it can't be done, take careful note to do things exactly as specified... in particular, I want to stress the following 3 special points made there: 1) If you are unable to download MBAM directly to the infected computer, you should download it to another computer, and then transfer it (via memory stick) to the infected machine. 2) since .exe files wont run on your infected machine,  you'll have to rename the  setup file from mbam-setup.exe: [IMAGE]  to mbam-setup.com: [IMAGE] 3) likewise, after installing MBAM, you will have to rename it from mbam.exe to mbam.com in order to run it. Keeping these 3 points in mind, go back and follow, step-by-step, the procedure indicated in the link above.    NOTE:  If Bugbatter replies here by the time you read this, then please follow anything she says that differs from my suggestion.
The virus made a window pop up that said it was a windows xp security 2011.  I tried to end it in task manager several times, then did a system restore.  After I did a system restore all my file associations were all mixed up and every which way I try to change the associations it won't let me.  It won't even let me open system restore or anything like it. My question is if I install the full version of windows 7 (right now I have windows xp) to my computer will it also erase everything on my computer including the virus?  Thanks for any help I can get!!   anything special I need to do if it's a laptop? I have a dell xps m140
virus jumbled all my file associations and won't let me reset them.....will 
upgrade to windows 7 overwrite everything on my comp. including virus?