I cannot say one way or another if IE7 is safer...it IS safe than earlier editions of IE but is it safer than Firefox? I would hesitate to say yes since IE 7 has not been available that long, and no, to anticipate your question, I have not installed it myself yet as I am very satisfied with Firefox 2. Though I know probably at some point I will have to do so. Until then, I will continue with my IE6 for Windows Updates and "surf along" with my Firefox2.
Glad you installed SpywareBlaster. Don't forget to enable it's Restricted Sites option also.

My error when giving the instructions; I should have told you to print out the instructions first. Then you would not need Internet Explorer or Notepad running. However these two; Windows Media Player, and Windows Messenger Utility had absolutely nothing to do with removing malware, spyware, viruses etc., and should have remained closed until all cleaning was complete. Neither one needs to be running all the time.

Norton Firewall DOES provide monitoring of both incoming and outgoing traffic so frankly, a different firewall is not needed. The KEY thing is Only ONE firewall operating on a system, NEVER more than one. So if you do have the Windows Firewall turned on, turn it off. If you have two running it will actually lessen the protection because they will conflict with each other and can let something slip in.

Sounds to me like you have all bases covered. You did great!
Thanks for the kind words. You wonder why I do this? I just love computers and I know how frustrating it is when they don't work as you would like them to or as they should any way I can help others get theirs up and running as fast and as clean as possible is just something I love to do.