A good Outlook addon for checking suspect emails is PocketKnife Peek. My thanks to Spaceman for originally putting me on to it.

Opt,

Thanks for the link. But....

I was advised, a while ago, to avoid Outlook altogether if possible.

Consequently I use nPopW as a scanner to check what is in my mailbox every ten minutes. It downloads nothing other than the first hundred or so lines of text.

I prune the obvious junk and then download with Virtual Access.

With Avast running all the time.

Touch wood, no problems within my (eroding) memory.

TP

I know a few of you use AVG .. has anyone noticed it slowing down their computer more than usual? I'm running the free version 8.5.421 on XP.

PlanB,

I abandonned it about a year ago. Not able to take measurements - but on the basis of a gut reaction.

Having said that I now use Avast and that little rotating A hardly ever seems to rest. It is particularly annoying on the machine that I use for photography and where I have told Avast to ignore my own picture folders.

TP

I'm looking for a good backup/cloning utility. One that I want to avoid is Acronis - it fouled up my laptop bigtime. I've heard mention of Macrium Reflect. Any users here?

I use Acronis and find it works well, with one exception. I backup to a separate disk and according to what it says on the tin, as it were, when the disk is full it is supposed to knock of the earliest backup to make room for the latest. Only it doesn't. That means that every three weks or so I have to clear out the Acronis secure zone and start again. Irritating. I wonder where I'm going wrong.
Any Acronis users out there?

Klal

Wait till next week and upgrade to Windows 7. It is worth the upgrade anyway and the backup is superb although you may need to go for the Ultimate version.

TOK, Optimist - thanks. I bought my HP Laptop about 4 months ago. It came with Vista Home Premium - I guess I am entitled to a free Windows 7 upgrade. Been hearing really good things about Windows 7.

TOK,

Acronis.

Yes and mine works.

I am no guru I don't know what to suggest.

But feel free to fire any questions.

TP

TP - Thanks for your interest but there's not a lot more I can say.
The problem is as stated. I'll try the Acronis forum if nobody else pops up here. Regards, ToK

TP - thanks. I'll be buying a new desktop soon when Windows 7 is officially out. I'll have to review AV programs then I think. AVG seems to be stifling my current machine, (which is admittedly a little old now).

PlanB
running 8.5.421 with no probs

TOK,

"I'll try the Acronis forum if nobody else pops up here."

Presumably you mean that Wilder one? I generally got good answers from it, but not always within 24 hours.

TP

What type of backups??

I use Dropbox. It's free & brilliant. All my data/photo's stored in the internet ether. I can access it from any of my PC's. All sync'd.

Acronis didn't work for me when I needed it :-(

I have been in the computer software industry since 1965. I have a great deal of experience of complex software and the time it takes to mature.

I am using Windows XP SP2. I did not 'upgrade' to Vista. I refused Vista on my new ThinkPad T500 which I purchased in June and insisted on XP. Even Microsoft are quietly admitting that Vista has been a disaster for them.

I will not upgrade to Windows 7 for at least a year after its final release.

Good luck to those who feel confident to do otherwise.

MM

I have been using Win7 since the public beta so that is nearly a year with it. The original beta version knocked spots off Vista, which some would say is not difficult. The RC version is as stable as XP and uses fewer hardware resources.

Even Microsoft will struggle to muck up the release version although I worry that the Home and Profesional versions could be crippled in the same way that the Home version of XP and Vista is. Ultimate is the one to get.

Opti: I'm sure that Microsoft have learned a lot from their bruising experience with Vista. I guess my point is that by then they should already have known better than to have committed all the Vista sins. I don't belittle the difficulties that face Microsoft in introducing a major new system - a vast customer base, myriads of applications, huge numbers of device drivers for third party devices to accommodate, all sorts of pathological couplings between their system and all this, well, stuff.

But the thrust of my point is essentially caveat emptor. I have a computer which is my major business tool, not an experimental lab for some bunch of hacks in Redmond. I merely suggest that caution is required before adopting Redmond's latest and greatest onto the computer that you rely upon to earn your living. Their track record isn't exactly pristine.

It should be noted that keys for different versions of Windows 7 are being sold on ebay from the USA for 11 or so. They apparently are from MSDN subscriptions which come with 10 free keys. They are said to work fine provided of course you can trust the seller not to sell them many times over. They might be worth filing away for future use as presumably Microsoft will soon come to their senses.

Also there is an education offer on at the moment, expires at the end of the month:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/

PlanB
I'm installing a new HD and sure enough AVG is causing some holdups. This is the first time it's happened although I've installed several before.

for an explanation you might be interested in the following:
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/709220-solved-avgrsx-exe-why-so.html

The holdups definitely coincided with installatioin of programs which AVG identified as problems. Hopefully once I've installed everything it won't happen again.

iiwarm - thanks for the link etc.

Still nothing I can pinpoint as a cause though; (not scanning for tracking cookies, for example).