It didn't find this particular thing though, but I guess it was good anyway.

You're saying you had adware on your system that was not located by Lavasoft Ad-aware?

Oh, wait, I think I see what happened. Some web page modified your start-page link to give you a popup ad. Your fix sounds correct, but I don't know why the start page entry is grayed.

Incidentally, if you tend to get annoyed by popups while surfing, there is a product called "Popup Ad Filter" that works for stopping them. Runs in the system tray.

I had problems using it on my '98 box, seemed to get unstable sometimes. Works like a charm on my 2000 box, though.