AOL Firewall

AOL Firewall = bullshit. Understood, sir.

I uninstalled everything with the word AOL on it anywhere, including the thing from Add/Remove Programs and the thing in Program Files, which surprisingly wasn't removed after I uninstalled it...

I think the problem with this may be caused by the firewall: When I open Windows Security Center from Control Panel, it tells me I have AOL Firewall installed and running. I turned on Windows Firewall and added GW as an exception, but then it says I have two conflicting Firewalls.

I've run multiple searches to find any firewall or AOL thing and I find nothing...

For reference, my PC is running Windows XP Home Edition and my current virus scanner is Spybot S&D.

Thanks for your help.

Spybot is not a virus scanner. It is mostly a malware blacklist -- it checks against a known list of items and does this only when scanning. Virus protection should be an active program, which is constantly watching for unusual activity and when scanning, it has "heuristics" which is basically looking for signs of a virus, not just checking files against a blacklist. I definitely recommend a real-time protection program to use along side spybot.... I use AVG free (free.avg.com) and have heard good things about Avast as well (free also)

Also, try removing AOL firewall from add/remove list while booted in safe mode (press f8 as booting up, select "safe mode")