What should I do with dss.exe? And can I keep ATF-cleaner?
Delete dss.exe file. Yes, you may keep ATF Cleaner.


* When I start my computer, before it goes to the XP loading screen, a black screen comes up and asks me if I want to start the computer as *Windows Media Center Edition* or *Windows System Restore*. It only gives me about 2 seconds to choose, so I just let it startup automatically as *Windows Media Center Edition*. How can I prevent this screen from appearing?
That's because of installing recovery console. I don't personally recommend disabling that. If something goes badly wrong with your system then recovery console may help.

When I ctrl+alt+del and open up Task Manager, it doesn't show ANY of the User Names for any of the processes except for one. Only System Idle Processes show SYSTEM as the User Name, and all the rest are blank. I know that it used to show Brenda Leigh for the ones that I was running and other User Names for processes that the computer was running, but I don't know what's wrong with it now.
Try following:
Click Start, Run and type Services.msc
* Locate Terminal Services and double-click it
* Set the Startup type to Automatic, and click Apply
* Click the Start button to launch the service manually.