Surfing the Internet is a dangerous proposition these days with all of the browser vulnerabilities that pop up every month, along with the sites trying to exploit them.  But you're a smart cookie, you secure your browser, have a virus scanner running, are using popup blockers, and scan your system with a spyware cleaner periodically.  However, despite the most diligent efforts, something snuck through and now your system is bogged down with all sorts of junk processes you don't want running.  And who knows if any of it is spying on your keystrokes and sending vital information like your credit card number across the Internet?

When it comes to scrubbing a system, you want to be as thorough as possible, and to do that you need some pretty powerful tools.  To help you out, the folks at Coding Horror have thrown together a detailed guide on how to free your machine of spyware using the Sysinternals suite of power tools.  This article and the software linked should become a standard part of your PC repair kit.