Brontok's got me bad

Hi

I got brontok and its killing me. I tried following the steps in the initial malware removal thread. However whenever I try to download any program that helps the computer restarts, it seems as if even if I load a page with the link to any program that could potenially combat brontok my pc restarts. Once I googled "hijackthis" and it rebooted.

I've other symptoms like,

The folder options not available so I cant make hidden files visible.

Every folder seems to have an .exe with a folder icon carrying the same name of the folder to which it belongs, when click windows explorer opens.

An html file within the My pictures folder with the name "about brontok"


Window XP sp2
No Antivirus presently (was asking for it)

Thanks guys