"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
news

" JimH" wrote in message
. ..

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
" JimH" wrote in message
om...

Sure. Try running the programs I suggested to see what a good job
ZoneAlarm has done for you blocking spyware.

I guarantee you that you will be amazed at how much spyware you have
on your machine if you rely on ZoneAlarm only.




Oops.

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Spy...pydefense.html


Even "good" software can cause some interesting, evil conflicts with
things like sound & video drivers. It's one reason why you shouldn't
continually try all sorts of stuff. When these conflicts occur, it's
enough to drive you nuts, especially since uninstall routines cannot
reverse the problem much of the time.


I have not had a problem so far (knock on wood) running the programs I
listed.


Keep doing those backups..... :-)

Yep. I backup not only to a partition on my hard drive but more importantly
on an external hard drive. I am most worried about my pictures and music
files.

I use Acronis True Image and it has saved me a couple of times already.

I have now gotten into the habit of backing up the entire drive weekly.



I've had a couple of machines which got so screwed up by
software-initiated device conflicts that I had to reformat & reinstall
from scratch. You've probably seen machines which simply freeze while
you're doing absolutely nothing to deserve it. If it's a home machine,
maybe it's not a big deal. But, I've had it happen twice with the machine
I run my business with. Not good. Now, I install nothing experimental on
that machine, ever.

Even it is a home machine it takes days to get it tweaked the way you like
it after a new and clean install of all your programs.