What is the best computer virus protection?

Gardor

My computer decided to kick off the end of the year by picking up something that is making it act whacky. My AV (McAfee) is logging and blocking something called winupdate86 from creating files. Now it seems that every 20 minutes there is a pop up that states that Windows will download a anti spyware program. This is the first time that this has happened to me, so I don't know how to handle it. I don't even know if this is spyware, malware, adware or trojan. Even my AV is logging all this it is still does not seem to see this as a problem. So if you could help by answering some questions I would greatly appreciate it. 1. My computer has two hard drives. The AV is logging and blocking files in the first hard drive. Is the second hard drive infected? 2. What free programs are out there to help remove this from my computer? 3. My friend had an executable file that kept trying to log onto the internet. He fixed it by changing the .exe in the file to a .txt. If I know what files are causing the problem can I do the same thing, without harming my computer? 4. Can I take both hard drives, place them in external hard drive enclosures and have a friend with a clean computer scan them to find and remove the problem? 5. Could AVG be downloaded onto a thumb drive and then used to scan my computer? 6. Would it be possible to move files from the second hard drive to an external hard drive without infecting anything? 7. All my friends have Vista or Windows 7. I used Windows XP. If they decided to scan my computer would this cause a conflict with my drives. That is it for now. I am kind paranoid about downloading and installing anything right now. If you can answer all the questions and give me any direction I would greatly appreciate it. Please bear in mind that I am not that very computer saavy. Thanks and have a Happy New Year  unlock iphone