I'm running Spybot S&D + AV 2.4 Corporate Edition. I normally do not have Live Protection enabled because I have another active antivirus system and the scanner service takes a lot of RAM that my computer (running WinXP) does not have to spare.

On Monday, I ran a manual scan on a particular drive to double-check the removal of malware-infected files. As soon as I started that scan, Live Protection enabled automatically and insisted on checking every process as it started, which was unnecessary and made the system a lot slower.

Since then, Spybot has exhibited the following problems:

1. If the Scanner Service is set to enable after each reboot, the service does not actually start when the computer restarts; I have to go into Settings > System Services and manually click Start each time.
2. If I don't do that or if I choose to disable the Scanner Service (which consumes at least 15% of my none-too-generous RAM) in any way, I am no longer able to access any website through a browser until I (a) reenable the Scanner Service or (b) manually disable each browser's proxy servers. Changing the proxy settings under the Settings > Internet Protection table has no effect: If I'm not using the resource-hungry Scanner Service, Spybot has apparently decided I'm not allowed to use the Internet.

Again, I don't want the Scanner Service to be running constantly -- I don't have the resources to spare. I would like to be able to use it on demand (if I run a system scan or choose to manually scan a folder or a file). I do not want it to block me from accessing the Internet through a web browser.

Spybot was doing this satisfactorily until I initiated the manual scan on Monday. How do I get it back into an acceptable configuration? I've tried every combination of settings I can think of with no change.

Any suggestions? I tried emailing priority support and have yet to get any reply. This is quite frustrating and is significantly impairing my computer's performance.

(Apropos of the malware, I've now run full system scans with Spybot, my regular anti-virus suite (avast! Endpoint Protection), and several on-demand tools, which have all come up clean, so I don't see any obvious indication that this issue is malware-related. It seems to be a Spybot glitch.)