Popups, about:blank, and startup

I am getting inundated with constant popups, some of which briefly show about:blank in the title bar. Even more annoying is that when I start my machine or reboot, an IE window will automatically come up with varying garbage. I thoroughly read the thread at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 and performed the steps it outlined. To summarize I have done the following so far without success (this has taken several days):

Got Ad-Aware SE updates
Installed Ad-Aware VX2 Cleaner Plug-In
Installed CCleaner
Installed Spybot and updated
Installed SpywareBlaster end enabled protection
Downloaded McAfee AVERT Stinger
Downloaded CWShredder
Downloaded Kill2Me
Downloaded about:Buster
Downloaded HSRemove

Booted in safe mode

Did online scan at Trend Micro
Did online scan at Symantec Security Check
Ran McAfee AVERT Stinger
Ran CCleaner to clean out temporary files
Scanned with Ad-Aware SE and SpyBot and used Immunize
Ran CWShredder
Ran Kill2Me
Ran about:Buster
Ran HSRemove

I'm still having problems and ran HijackThis and would be happy to post the loag, but I see the instructions indicate not to do so until asked. Any suggestions?