I've never had problems with them until this week. I have the google task bar, which worked great all last year. But now I get at least 2 ads just for going to the seek42 page or the campus webpage. ad-aware 6 couldn't get rid of them and I've removed several ad programs from my system using the control panel -> add/remove programs. Nothing seems to be working. Any help would be appreciated.

1) Spybot and other spyware programs

2) Use Mozilla Firefox

3) Format

Take a look at:
C:\windows\Downloaded Program Files\
Either go through each file and make sure it is something you want or delete them all. Those are the ActiveX controls you have installed onto your machine. If you delete them then next time you need one it will install again. I guess I will note that XP SP2 gives IE something to manage them.