Mike,

I didn't make myself clear enough - sorry.

It is when you go to the well know national PC/electrical stores that you
don't see, or get offered a wide range of firewall/virus options presumably
because there is some sort of incentive offered between the companies to
promote their software. Similarly switching ISPs, as I have recently done
tends to come with "free" 12 month subscription to one of the big two. It's
the typical marketing economy to the illiterate PC majority. In the same way
the best burgers are anything but McDonalds but you rarely see those either
advertised or promoted by other means. Fortunately my lack of expertise in
PCs is made up for by my expertise in food

I know enough to know that when I have problems there are great places to
come on the web to get answers to problems and recommendations as to future
use.

Ad-Aware SE is only an educated guess when I was trying to work back step by
step to what I had done I came across a number of articles on the web about
people that appear to have had similar problems to me, though there appears
to be no CONSENSUS on whether this is a true confirmed fault or just wild
suspicions like mine.

This differs significantly from Norton where I've always been well aware of
how it slows down your computer and I'm now only too aware of other issues it
can cause.

I've had advice from oops on suggested firewall/virus/spyware etc protection
but I'd really be interested in your own thoughts and recommendations into
protecting my ME environment. I'm already pretty tight on the Internet
Options I permit through IE. but again your insight would be appreciated

Tony

"Mike M" wrote:

Tony,

I'm glad to read that you are now fit to go. Incidentally both Mart and
myself are in the UK so that isn't a very good excuse vbg for having
Norton installed. Norton/Symantec's track record is pretty bad regardless
of which OS is in use but is particularly appalling when it comes to Win
Me and should NEVER be installed, if only in an attempt to save the sanity
of the user.

I'm somewhat surprised to read that you think that using Adaware SE caused
you to lose the ability to execute files or use links, certainly this
isn't something I recall ever having come across before on either Win Me
or any other OS. Loss of EXE functionality can often be the result of
malware although in truth more confined to the likes of regedit.exe and
various AV and firewall executables all in an attempt to prevent ready
removal of the malware.

Nevertheless I'm pleased to read that all appears to now be OK.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



Tony1966 wrote:

LOL - I'm hoping Mike will forgive me for any Norton indiscretions.

The trouble is - particularly here in the UK for the ignorant average
user like me Mcafee and Norton are typically the only two packaged
"must have" applications and it is only through encountering serious
problems that we see the light. :-D.

Although Norton prevented me from using any Windows restores it
doesn't (too me) appear to be the cause of my woes. When deciding to
clean up the old PC for networking purposes I opened Ad-Aware SE and
requested web updates. It would appear (and other www threads seem to
confirm) that this has caused EXE/LNK association failures.

After all the problems at least I have a clean and beauifiully
running ME desktop - for now.