Anything what microsoft does works poorly…If they just wouldnt send their army of lawyers on everyone who likes to do a similar operating system as windows we would prolly have a working one…
Don’t get me wrong, windows is nice (to me), I just wish they’d though more about backwards compatibility between XP and the earlier versions…I can’t play half of my computer games anymore
I’ve tried that, but I can’t run it full screen, and I have to reinstall all my old drivers, which I’ve misplaced.
If I get desparate enough I’ll just put a windows 98 partition in my hard drive.
I would not recommend Zone Alarm, it has been known to slow down cable/broadband connections. It totally messed up my system and i will never use it again.
McAfee (antivirus) messed up my TCP settings so once I uninstalled it I couldn’t get online at all. argh.
– I currently use Sygate Personal Firewall Pro - it’s one of the best and most secure I have EVER used. (there is a free version) It maybe overly secure for the average user, but I much prefer it to Zone Alarm Sygate
Spybot I have, but I don’t use it much, as I prefer Giant Anti-spyware. It beats the pants off of Adaware and Spybot. - Unfortunately Microsoft recently bought them out and are developing their own version.
For antivirus I use Avast I’ve used a few from F-secure, Mcafee, AVG and something I can’t remember. Avast is my favorite, it even talks LOL.
Also here’s something I use to clear space from temp files that normal cleaning won’t work. I found the program when Windows XP ate 4gig of harddrive space for no reason that I couldn’t recover. While it did work, it also recovered 400mb of space i didn’t know was wasted with temp files and stuff.
East-Tec Eraser It’s only a 30day trial - but I would suggest you give it a try. But before running the “privacy gaurd” (click advanced) make sure all the settings are how you want them so nothing is getting deleted that you want to keep - IE history for example.
The default settings will likely be fine for most, but never hurts to check. Worth a try - trust me.
I have a progrma called Spyware Blaster. It actually prevents spyware and other things form installing on your comp and its free. javacoolsoftware.com/
I use the new microsoft adware searching tool it works fine. Lately my computer has been going quite slow and freezing at times which is unusual as its a top of the line model It turns out my little brother had a go at OVERCLOCKING! Bad Monkey Boy!!! I’ve turned everything back down i just hope the graphics card hasn’t got brain damage hugs tower
My computer slowly had my drivers deleted one by one… eventually my keyboard driver was deleted. Couldn’t run it anymore… that was my worse one so far… now I learned my lesson and have a lot of stuff you listed. I don’t have firewall because I’m automatically protected by hardware firewall. So, be safe… because it’s not fun losing all files and reformat everything.
AdAware and Spybot, together with Norton AntiVirus, work like a charm for me. I’ve read that the former two are the best anti-spyware programs out there.
Also, if anyone’s had problems with Trojans and such, I recommend Trojan Hunter, also top-rated, and worked for me.