Antivirus program?

Drew, do you still recommend getting avast? Is it good antivirus software, or should I buy something else?

Yeah Avast is the best free one, in combination with Windows Defender and the XP Firewall your protection is more then adequate. With Avast you may want to disable whatever modules you do not need. Spyware/Adaware seems to be a bigger issue now more then viruses. I personally would not buy one. If it was for a mission critical business system Trend Micro continues to be the best.

If you share the computer I highly recommend limited user accounts for everyone but you.

I have/use Avast. It seems to work...

I wish it wasn't so flashy. Their interface design skills suck.

You can disable the skin all together (in the settings somewhere) and the interface is then very simplified. Or you can try a different skin. The interface is my biggest complaint, I usually disable the skin.

I recommending combining the two task bar icons, right click on the one not the "A". And then disabling any modules you do not need, firewall if you have one ect...

The reasons I recommend it:

1. It is completely free (email registration required)
2. Automatically Updates
3. Includes a boot time scan
4. Detection is better than other free antivirus programs (AVG)
5. I like how annoying it is when it finds a virus.

I FINALLY finished all the updates to Windows and started to install other software, when my internet connection went out. I coudln't get it back for the life of me, so I used the windows CD to repair the installation. That worked, but it put me back as SP1! Mother (#*$#@$!

I think the problem was caused by either avast or Nero (the only two I installed before I restarted), combined with Spybot trying to block all the registry changes. This sucks.

You need to disable the Teatimer on Spybot as per my instruction but Avast is not going to cause any problems with your internet connection. Actually none of those programs will. Did you replace your RAM?

No, I RTFM. When you only have two sticks of ram, you are supposed to split them between ram slots instead of sticking them right next to each other. Each duo has it's own data bus, apparently. So it's running in dual channel mode now. Anyway, I haven't gotten a blue screen yet, but I suspect part of the problem was that I didn't have the ram seated all the way down. It took considerable force to make them snap into place.

Bioshock still freezes randomly, but I can get in about 30 min of play beforehand. At this point though, I think it's a software issue, not hardware. Memtest86 doesn't catch anything.

I eventually did disable teatimer, just not fast enough I guess. Or maybe the problem was totally unrelated, I don't know.

Btw, avast scared the poo out of me when it updated the virus definitions. I had the volume all turned up and everything.

Yep usually the board manufacturer color codes the memory slots too.

For Bioshock do the following:

1. Make sure you have the latest mainboard BIOS
2. Update your chipset drivers manually
3. Update your video card drivers manually
4. Update your sound card drivers manually
5. Check that you have the latest version of DirectX for XP = 9.0c
6. Install the latest patches for the game off the manufacturers website

If it still locks up but you can cancel out back to the desktop it is most likely a software issue. I don't know what video card you got but if it is nVidia check the driver doc for game issues (on their website).

The guy at Fry's told me it was just for looks.

I'm in the process of updating everything, but it's slow going. By the way, what ever happened to the Intel Application Accelerator? Why is that not recommended anymore? (what did it do?)