cmd and regedit crashes explorer.exe, google search result redirects

Whenever I run cmd OR regedit OR batch files explorer.exe crashes as evidenced by my taskbar and desktop icons disappearing and then coming back after a second or two.

I’ve also been experiencing occasional redirects when clicking on search results from google, this happens in both Opera and Firefox. I have no idea how this is happening since the redirects happen after arriving at the exact URL that the results give me since my back button will bring me back to the page I was expecting most of the time.

I believe I first noticed the problem with the redirects Thursday night (Feb 26), but it is subtle enough that I might have seen it sooner.

I have tried running the following to resolve this with no success:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
Spybot Search & Destroy
SUPERAntiSpyware
Ad-Aware 2008
Norton Anti-Virus Corporate Edition (my school’s IT department gave it to all students)

I have also tried renaming cmd.exe to cmd1.exe and running cmd1 and that DOES work.

I checked my hosts file in windows\system32\drivers\etc and all it has is the 127.0.0.1 entry in it.

I would be greatful for any help or suggestions anyone could provide.

 

Unfortunately I am unable to run DDS what seems to be happening is when I run DDS a command window appears for a fraction of a second and then disapears and nothing happens after that. I believe that whatever is causing my problems running cmd and regedit is interfering with the tool.