Norton AV 2003 and 2004 are on
http://www.pricewatch.com for like 20 bucks, even less. I'd SERIOUSLY suggest you get your hands on a copy.....
Your problem sounds very familiar, but it was another filename. Don't remember the details, I DO remember that it was a name VERY CLOSE to system software. It was some program that had set itself up, and set itself to run on win xp startup that would proceed to hijack the net' connection. It was difficult to recognize because I couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary running....it was so good that it was running right beside the REAL filename and it was still difficult to spot.
My problem however was as simple as deleting the original exe and the one it made. Norton 2k4 picked it up. To be noted - the virus wasn't on my PC, it was on a friend who was running Mcafee. All I did was uninstall Mcafee, put N2K4 on the person's machine and then run it. It found the culprit, then all I had to do was delete the directory in safe mode.