Thanks for the help, mmarable. That was very informative. Zxian: somehow i seem to have caught the bait on your idea. It looks really good - in an evil sort of way! thanks for the info. Could you tell me a couple of things about this: #1. when the system is restored on reboot - does it take care of issues like defragmentation etc. #2. does it allow for users to save some files somewhere (on a different drive, maybe) #3. what are the space requirements for such a system? i guess it would mean a complete copy of the exisiting system is saved somewhere.. no? #4. WOW!! D4MN THIS IDEA SOUNDS GOOD! PS: seeing automatic censor for (D 4 M N) the first time here!