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[swords]

Thanks for all the assistance folks!

I'm back online on the desktop after what appears to be a successful wipe and reinstallation of Windows XP64. I lost the free copy of Photoshop 7 the guy who built my PC installed as test software so I gotta to buy that now (damn) or at least be content with Photoshop Elements that came with my Wacom pen tablet, I've never checked that out maybe elements is OK for digital painting? But at least the nasties should all be gone.

My super deluxe videocard with a cherry ontop or whatever works again and I can run my huge monitor on maximum resolution again. Not sure what I was supposed to be doing with the motherboard disk, it kept wanting me to setup a DOS "raid controller" (?) and setup a series of floppy disks (??) I have no floppy drive installed. So I just installed the chipset and audio driver for the motherboard and so far no smoke or sparks so it seems like it should be OK.

I'm trying to decide between the Kaspersky or the Norton AV suites, does anyone have a preference? Is it safe to download the trial and then pay versions of these from that Downloads.net site? I'd like to download them incase they for some reaosn won't jive with 64 bit. Best Buy doesn't care if you couldn't install it, they won't take it back.

I prefer to use Firefox for websurfing, right now I'm on IE, boy it's slow! But is there a way to shut off IE so no viruses can sneak throught it since once I redownload Firefox I probably won't be opening IE on purpose ever again?

 

[Av8tor1]

swords,

RAID is a utility that allows you to use multiple hard drives in cool ways... evidently not anything you need to worry about. On my desktop I run RAID 0 (IIRC?) where 2 identical drives work as one.

To be honest I would recommend the Norton over the Kaspersky to someone who is somewhat new to security software. The Kaspersky can be a bit overwhelming and requires tweaking to get up to full potential. The Norton's default settings come set about where they need to be.

You can trust Downloads.com, CNET has been around a long time.

Besure you get the right package from those reviews, there are a few flavors if I recall correctly

Av

 

[Av8tor1]

http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0184.077

 

[swords]

Thanks, that's a good thing to know and makes the decision much easier! If I have one of these software suites can it scan a file before I download it from an email and it will tell me if it detects any viruses in it? My writers send me images to go with their record reviews/interviews so those are really the only things I download.

I have two 500G harddrives one for OS and such and the other for personal files. How do you format the other drive to restore it like new? Does simply deleting everything act the same as a formal reformatting since it's merely storage?