Tarun

Just because there were no reports of errors on the drive, does not mean that it's error free. When I had the hard drive failing, I had no bad clusters or anything. When I used the applications suggested above (I had some on a cd provided from the company I got my pc from) it found errors. Not everything is foolproof, especially with MS products.

Check your hard drive. Run Scandisk both thorough and standard, scan the disk surface and everything. Listen with the case open as well for any irregular noises. I had an old 20GB Western Digital hard drive go bad. It started to make noises and freeze all the time. Until the point where I could barely run the pc for more than 20 minutes without a loud "nails on a chalkboard" skreech. (Resolved this with a new free hard drive since warranty was still in effect) For some great hard drive diagnostic tools, go here. http://support.wdc.com/download/ Try both the Data Lifeguard and the DLG Diagnostic

Okay. I have you on my Aim so I can send you some files to help fix the problem. Even a System Restore Remover which is great freeware, and a few other helpful files. If others what the System Restore Remover Pro file, I can post the URL.

LoadQM is Msn Messenger related and can safely be disabled. Even if you disable System Restore, you still can't delete the folder. Search these boards, I know there's a thread on how to actually remove/disable System Restore. I find SR totally useless, I use Goback, which is totally cool. About LoadQM: loadqm.exe -- Installed with MSN Explorer and MSN Messenger. Loads the MSN Queue Manager. Required to enable the WU AutoUpdate feature. Note that disabling this can sometimes prevent internet sharing working on Win2K Pro SP2. Reports also suggest that removing it will re-enable internet access - hence the "users choice" recommendation. If you have problems leave it, otherwise I recommend you disable it. Note: I've disabled this with no problems and had system performance improve from removing this file from the Startup.

Ad Aware recently detected my IE startup page of about:blank as being a "Hostile Takeover". I was ready to smack the thing. Spybot hasn't failed me though.

Outpost Pro is an excellent firewall. Very easy to use and easy to customize too. I'd recommend it more than ZoneAlarm Pro. Only thing I miss in Outpost that ZoneAlarm Pro did a great job of was stopping some popups.

Is SP2 going to be released as Windows XP SP2 or will it be released as Windows XP Reloaded? I'm wondering because I've been following the SP2/Reloaded topics closely. Looking into getting a new computer since mine is 5+ years old, and cable internet is coming to the area by July.

Took a course in college, but it was basically a runthrough of what I had already learned on my own. I've heard many good things about Dreamweaver.

If this was originally posted in the wrong place, I do apologize in advance. Was unsure whether to post here or the Website forum. With some of the recent success of my software, I've found the need to make my own website. I've ask around to see what some people use. I've heard Frontpage and Dreamweaver being the top two. In case you're wondering; yes, I'm too lazy to try and code a good looking HTML site from scratch. Suggestions are welcome.

I used to use ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5 but I recently switched to Agnitium Outpost Pro. Zonealarm will tell you it detects new networks and asks you to set them up, you simply go through and it automatically configures the access properly. Make sure you allow your common applications access to the internet such as IE or other programs you use and trust. IMPORTANT You MUST allow Explorer.exe to have internet access or else nothing will work

linthius, have you ever used ZoneAlarm Pro before? If so, which did you prefer better, Outpost or ZonePro? I just switched to Outpost and want to hear what people have to say about the two.

http://downloads.locias.com/shared/thong.swf As I find more good ones I'll keep'em coming.

Note: Adding on. I will gladly strip through the cd and do more reseach on it should anyone have any questions. I noticed when it installed IE6 with SP1, that it removed the patch that I had downloaded for a critical flaw in IE, a 2.8Mb file which I had to redownload.

I too gave my review (admittingly I didn't see this one right off hand) on the cds as well. EZ Guard is just ZoneAlarm Pro's firewall. It's identical with the ezTrust logos and such on it. Even the readme states it's from ZoneLabs.

Other: ZoneAlarm Pro

Well, my email from MS said it'd take 3-8 business days. Today is the tenth. But hey it is free and it finally arrived. Two cds are inside and easy to use for even the most computer illiterate. You agree to the TOS and then it will automatically install for you. The first cd installs will be IE6, DirectX9, WMP9 and other software. It will install all the security patches and updates, and when it's done with certain items it will allow 15 seconds until a reboot. So this is pretty much an unattended cd. I estimated that the total duration of updating time, with the four reboots was appx. ten minutes. All in all, since I'm on dialup I found this to be very helpful since I had to say no to some updates due to the size of 30mb+ when online. They do however recommend you sign up for their Security Newsletter and check the Windows Update site for "any new updates since the cd release." The second cd offers free antivirus for one year and a free firewall for fifteen days. EZTrust Antivirus is the AVS software, and the firewall is EZTrust Firewall, but upon examination it's actually a limited trial of ZoneAlarm Pro with EZTrust labels slapped all over it. Overall and since it is a free cd it's very much so worth getting. Edit: I'm running Windows ME and I just noticed that they changed a registry string. My WinME now reads as 4.90.3000A where before there was no A. Tarun

On my oldest pc (appx 10 years, and it just died a while back) it ran DOS-SHELL.

Whoo.. Over 600 items. I've seen a lot of those at some chat sites believe it or not.

600+ here. Though I've only ripped less than one fourth of my cds. 37 hours appx already on it however. I have a list too that is pretty current if anyone's interested.

Look on the left of the current driver page. It will say "Windows 95/98/Me Driver Archive". I have the url for you as well. http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_archive.html That should hopefully solve the problem.

http://www.anti-virus-software-review.com/ Says it all.

I believe you can do something similar to what Aim 4.8.2790 and MyIM can do. You can "Clone" Aim, what it does is it copies the aim.exe into a new folder and runs that application from there. Try this with Msn, it should work.