I came across this thing a few weeks ago, Kevin, and it's nasty. It was on the computer of a friend of a friend of a friend, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with it.

What happened is that you somehow downloaded a worm that installed a program that intercepts the URLs you enter into your Internet browser. When you got to certain Websites (usually search Websites), it redirects you to a search engine that sends you to commercial sites that may be related to your search.

Removing it is a real hassle, involving a number of registry changes. If it's at all possible, the easier solution is to save your data, and reinstall Windows.

Best of luck - you have a nasty problem with no simple solution.

-Joe-