I've done all of the above many times; did a McAfee Virus check; check for trojans with MooSoft's The Cleaner; and checked out any maintenance that could possibly need to be done. I have my Firewall set as enabled, and utilize McAfee Secuirty Center.
The only new things I have done is to install Mozilla Thunderbird and "Go To My PC" to access my home computer. (I already had one computer installed to access a work computer from home.)
I also downloaded a 14 day trial of Quarb which is supposed to help with adware, etc., although this is out of desparation since I already have plenty of options to do so on this computer. I can not open Quarb without opening Outllook Express, so that's no help. I have the most recent update on Outlook Express.
Now what can I do? I do get my mail through Thunderbird, but rally prefer the folder set-up I have in Outlook. Thunderbird downlaods all account at once. And I'm not a novice, and am not usually afraid to do anything, like set up a network at work, etc.