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Rui, MaBelleMichelle, and everyone else who had advice for me:

Thanks much to all of you. Rui’s link to “pchell.com” was exactly what the doctor ordered. Worked great and took very little time to complete.

One thing, however: Upon reboot, Security Center was still reporting multiple firewalls (though the AV status was reporting correctly). I thought perhaps I may have checked too quickly after reboot, so I closed SC, waited a minute, and then looked again. Still the same! So I opened the Windows Firewall applet, noticed that the Windows Firewall was “OFF” (correct — I use ZoneAlarm on that system), and decided to turn the Windows Firewall “ON”, wait about 1 minute, turn it “OFF” again, wait 1 minute and then rechecked SC. Everything is being reported correctly now.

You guys may just be my best friends now! Thanks again (and again) !!

Rui,
Thanks for that. Sounds like it should solve the problem. Will do this and get back to you as soon as I can (not for a day or two probably, so please bear with me).

MaBelleMichelle,
Where are my manners! As with “ack”, I simply passed right by your post. Sincere apologies to you (as well as reiterating them to “ack”).
Yes. Ran AV/AM in both Safe Mode and “normal startup”. I ran each AV/AM installed (as noted in my previous reply) plus MBAM which I updated just prior to first reboot into Safe Mode.
There are no symptoms of the infection on the system except that SC reports incorrectly. It’s a “head scratcher”, for sure! That is why I believe that SC is reporting “incorrectly”. (If I knew where it gathered its info from, I could at least know why this is occurring.)

Sorry, Ack … thanks for the input (and I didn’t mean for it to seem that I ignored your assistance).
Yes! That is exactly where I started when I removed it back in July, 2010. (bleepingcomputer,com is always a good place to start and is often the only info/instructions required!)
Double-checked all files and registry entries. Actually found that the filenames were different (common situation these days). Scanned system (including registry) for matches on all files and registry entries. Clean, clean clean. Only hits were on “Security Master” and these were only in the “Search MRU” entries.

Thanks, Clint.
Virus/Trojan Removal Status: This is a dead puppy. Dead, buried, and then banished to the netherworld.
Repair Install: Only value in this that I see would be to correct the problem by basically reinstalling. Not really worth the effort for this problem.
Shutdown SC Messages: Not a bad idea since two out of the three categories (AV/AM, Firewall, Automatic Updates) are valueless if I can’t find the solution. Still, this is basically a cosmetic solution (“Go away, child, you’re bothering me”).
I installed and ran COMODO, ESET, SuperAntispyware, and a few others already. Plus a couple of online scans. MBAM is always on the system as the free version is “on demand” and does not interfere with runtime software. Every one of them reports an absolutely clean system.

Still, I sincerely appreciate your response and hope you understand if I “hold out” to see if anyone knows the answer to where SC gathers its info from.

I am not sure how I got to the page… I was just trying to see and opt-out of all the categories and options and to eliminate (or, at minimum, severely limit) the info that was available under any circumstances. At any rate, I believe that this page will allow setting (“opting out”) of multiple categories/options. Hope this works and hope it helps others, too. URL: http://cid-c492d977db9896a4.profile.live.com/whatsnewwithyousettings/?ru=http%3a%2f%2fcid-c492d977db9896a4.profile.live.com%2f