Spam-annhilated?

[Jimbo]

One of my kids was surfing all evening and as usual called me in when she went to shut down and couldn't. That's about the only time I get to use the PC. Anyway, I was finally able to stop some processes and shutdown and restart and when I did I got a message that said "Registry Editor-unable to import C:\ie.reg, file may be damaged." I can't start Explorer and Norton gives me a message that it can't enable email protection and I can't run live update. I believe my cable modem is all right, but maybe some files got corrupted, but a Diskcleanup, Scandisk and Defrag didn't change things.
I'm at work, so it's tough dealing with Dell over the phone when the PC is at home.
Did anyone ever see something like this before? Registry files are a bit over my head, but I thought I'd ask if anyone has ever seen anything like this. I was told to try running AdAware, but I'm not convinced this is the result of a nasty spamming. Any thoughts would be most appreciated?