Vista - how to remove sidebyside virus?

after 3-4 months of occassionally rebooting because of blue screens, i had 3 in a row so i called Sony support. using remote access to my Sony Viao the tech found an adware virus called sidebyside, hidden twice in my computer. He could not delete it and told me to wipe & reinstall. easy to say, so i am appealing to the sages with any advice; i have backed up all data. symantec.com states it is a low level threat, webroot doesn't know it exists.

The sidebyside virus is an adware virus with a low risk impact. It causes pop-ups to appear.

"Updated: February 13, 2007 11:45:39 AM
Type: Adware
Publisher: sidebysidesearch.com
Risk Impact: Low
File Names: sbss.exe
Systems Affected: Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP
Behavior


Adware.SideBySide directs web searches to sidebysidesearch.com, and displays pop-up ads.

Adware.SideBySide - Symantec.com
"

You may have other infections that are causing your problems.

Download and run Malabytes Rogue Remover

Run Hi-Jack This Despite all of your security and protection you may still get infected with spyware or a web browser hijacker that the other tools are unable to detect for some reason. HiJack This will generate a report of all browser add-ons, buttons and start-up items to help you determine rogue items and remove them.
www.spywareinfo.com

And post the results here.

Removal instructions for sidebyside:



1. Run a spyware program such as

Spybot
http://www.spyremoverbot.com/spybot
Ad Aware
Ad-Aware 2008 Free - Lavasoft



If that won't remove it the following are instructions for manual removal.

SideBySide is an adware application associated with sidebysidesearch.com domain. It monitors user activity in the Internet, records keywords that the user enters into web search services and shows commercial pop-up advertisements. SideBySide must be manually installed. It has no dangerous payload.
Type:
Adware
Executables:
sbss.exe
uninstallsbss.exe


EXE files and how to remove them

Registry Items:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunsbsslauncher=C:ProgramFilessbsssbss.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWAREsbss
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstallsbss
Protect yourself from spyware and virus attacks PDF
Notes:

Stop processes:sbss.exe

Remove Registry values:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunsbss launcher= C:Program Filessbsssbss.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREsbss
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstallsbss

Remove files:sbss.exe, uninstall sbss.exe

Remove directories:C:Program Filessbss SideBySide:
SideBySide spyware or virus on your computer and how to remove SideBySide or fix it.