Thought I'd give you a bit of background before I post the logs. This is my Dad's windows laptop - I came to visit and he mentions that he can't download any files, and he thinks there's a virus. I take a look - and specifically he can't download .exe files, so I couldn't follow any instructions to get rid of the virus, and on top of that, his laptop no longer seemed to allow me to access msconfig or any other settings that might help.

I followed the instructions here: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/exefile.htm and I can now download .exe files and all those problems seem to have gone away and I've been able to download spyware blockers and do AV scans.

However, now whenever I start up the laptop is says that Windows Defender failed to initialize. I'm not too sure what to do with that.

I haven't used a PC for around 3 years now, so I initially came here with a HickThis log, but realised that's a bit outdated, so followed the instructions on the stickied thread (really helpful! Thanks so much!)

Thanks in advance for your help.