>The best way to slow down a system is install virus software. It has a tendency to stick it's sticky fingers into every operation on the computer. I take my chances without one.

< Carefully noting email address >

The following is meant as humor

Tested your ability to restore from backup recently? Made a backup recently? Can I send you a program to try by email? I can guarentee you'll be finding the answers to these and many other interesting questions shortly after it runs... ;=)

Humor ends here

If you don't want to have the overhead of a full-time AV product running, at least get something like NAV or McAfee or F-PROT and run it against anything coming in from outside your controlled environment. Floppies and email are major sources of viruses that people tend to forget until they get bit. Sometimes a few extra seconds during loads is not acceptable. Almost inevitably, it'll be cheaper to buy a faster computer than rebuild after a really nasty virus hits, because the odds are you don't have backups that are current enough to make restoration worthwhile and aren't infected too. If someone wants to nail your system, they load up a virus that launches a month or two after it's loaded on your system. The stuff that blows you away instantly is amateur sh!t - it's like a germ that kills you 30 seconds after it hits your body. It has little chance of perpetuating itself if it kills instantly.