Jim
I have not seen any mention here of another category of Pest that one acquires from the Internet. I thought that Firewall + Virus software was keeping my machine clean. But i downloaded a shareware programme called SpyBot-S&D and had it run a check. Surprise surprise. I am no expert in this area but I think that the AD Ware stuff that is coming into our machines deserves some attention. There are other products that do this job - this is the only one that i have tried.

http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php?lang=en&page=start

regards

>The only reason I got a bit slack on my machine was for these very reasons - strange, altered behavior, slow bootups, shutdowns, etc. My development box gets fragile enough just thrugh my own work. The IE 5.5 SP2 was a nightmare - 3 apps busted because of it. I put a little too much faith in my firewall and virus scanner box. Adding the DSL router was the last straw, so to speak. Welcome to broadband :-)
>
>>Not to mention the strange things that randomly happen after some patch is installed.
>>Just yesterday a buddy needed to install ".NET Framework Runtime" for some Flight Sim add-on. Now some prior patch had messed up his "Windows Update" such that he gets an "ActiveX unauthorized..." error whenever Windows Update tries to run the "search for updates". So he asked me to download it for him. I did, and sent it off to him and he installed it. Now, after any boot he gets something he NEVER had before - the standard Windows startup "login" screen and he has to click his (and the only) icon to get things running. Yet it never shows up when the screen saver has kicked in or any other time. Just another one of those mysterious MS things that people seem to expect and ACCEPT!!!
>>
>>cheers