Windows Installer Message Slowing Performance

My problem began when I started to sporadically receive pop-up messages in the lower right hand corner of the desktop stating “Local Area Network A Network Cable Is Unplugged” which would then freeze my mouse and keyboard. (Windows XP Home Edition) This would happen irregardless of being connected to the Internet or not. So I (foolishly?) did a system restore to a check point around two months prior. That not only didn’t solve that problem, but gave me a new problem. In addition to LAN message/freezing problem, when I reboot I also get a “Windows Installer Preparing to Install” message that comes up and stays up for minutes at a time. More frustrating is that the installer message comes up every time I try to open nearly every program, including IE. Programs will run fine, but I have to wait a couple of minutes for the installer window to go away before I can run anything. (Hitting cancel doesn’t speed things up either).
So I found the “READ & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support” page on Major Geeks and religiously went through all the steps to clean and remove Malware, and so far it appears that my LAN message/freezing problem has been solved (thank you!), but the windows installer problem remains. I remember the scans removing two items, one Neoturk RAT, but I can’t remember the other.
Granted, my computer (HP pavilion a730n) isn’t exactly in flames, but this is a serious annoyance, and any suggestions would be welcome. I tried to search for a similar problem on the forums, but didn’t see anything.
Also just FYI: I have a ton of programs that come up automatically at the start of every log in. Looking at them in MSCONFIG, I can’t even tell what half of them are. Some of them are even blank. Anyway I can pare this list down in the normal startup?
Thanks
I’ve included the scan logs below

 

and here's the rest

 

will do thanks

 

I had run a system restore to try to fix the LAN connection problem, but that was before I went through any of the RUN & READ ME FIRST steps, i guess with the assumption that the scan would pick up anything re-activated anyway. After completing steps 0-7, and seeing that the windows installer problem remained, I figured that it must not be a problem associated with malware and proceded to step 8.
It sounds like you are saying that I should have had the scan logs analyzed before I toggled system restore.
Did I goof up?

 

hoo boy, that can't be good.
I tried the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility but that didn't work.
Oh well, I'm off to the software forum.
thanks again!