My computer is suiciding!

[Sid]

Please help! My Windows XP machine is suiciding!
Yesterday I noticed that about 5 shortcuts on my desktop have no icon
associated to them. Then I checked the Program Files folder and saw that all
files in their corresponding folders are deleted, but folders themselves are
not deleted.
Anyway I spent about 2 hours and re-installed those mysteriously deleted
programs.
This morning when I boot up my computer I noticed that another 4 programs
have been deleted in the same way (including one of the programs which I
re-installed yesterday).
I am using AVG anti virus and is up to date. So I don't think it is a virus.
I also tried lat night to use System Restore, but none of restore points
worked.
Please also note that at bootup machine tries to load a program called
"TrayApp" , and continues to try and load after
cancel is pushed several times, and goes into error message 1706.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[R. McCarty]

Anti-Virus is no longer sufficient Security protection for a PC
used on the Internet. Any "Unexplained Activity" is cause for
concern. Along with AntiVirus you need Firewall, Real time
Malware protection and a number of Detection/Removal tools
to get what is already on the PC, off of it. Once Clean the PC
needs Security measures taken to keep Malware/Spyware off
the computer.Along with resident programs like AdAware &
Spybot search and destroy most Security vendors have online
scans to detect and remove this junk.

 

[Plato]

Anti-Virus is no longer sufficient Security protection for a PC
used on the Internet. Any "Unexplained Activity" is cause for
concern. Along with AntiVirus you need Firewall, Real time
Malware protection and a number of Detection/Removal tools

You really dont need full time malware protection.