WINDOWS VISTA LMAO!!!!!!

[maxnorris]

Wasn't terribly thrilled with Vista myself.  Aero is nice, I do like the changes to Explorer itself (not IE, that POS I never use) But other than that, it's still basically XP bloated beyond belief. Even after removing a lot of the services that I don't want running (search and whatnot), still takes a lot more memory and is a lot slower.  (My system isn't state of the art but its no turkey either, shoot just copying files across my network was drastically slower)  No thanks.

If you do want to run Vista tho, absolutely, you do want to install a real firewall and antivirus.  Don't rely on their watered down firewall, and UAC is a joke/annoyance.  (How can they have not learned from Linux's security by now?)

Was never a fan of Norton, slow and bloated as well.  For antivirus I'm a fan of NOD32, which is Vista ready.  (Lean and fast.)

ZoneLab's has been dragging their feet getting ZoneAlarm Vista ready for some reason, not like it's been in publicly available betas for over a year.  Kaspersky is offering a beta/trial for Vista that runs into May, seemed to work pretty well on my test system. If anything use the free trial until ZoneAlarm catches up.

But regardless which way you go, pick one and install it asafp.  All the pretty UI upgrades aside, it's still Windows, and it's still a virus/spyware magnet.

[mnichols7]

It is and always will be I guess.  But I know it and I really don't want to learned something new.  Old dog new tricks as they say. 

[parentingdiscussions]

I have been thinking about obtaining Vista for a while now, but like all new OS, I think I am going to wait for a while until they work out all the bugs, maybe 6 months of so, Vista isn't going anywhere any time soon, and my XP works just fine for now.

I just have this feeling that if I plunge into vista too soon then it might end up like Window ME the nightmare from the city down under. I also haven't seen to many good reviews on it just yet, meaning that in most of the tech websites other people are having problems as well.

Someone mentioned something about Norton software in here, and I want to let you know something. I used Norton for a number of years, and I was so devoted to them that I just couldn't trust anyone else. I went to a computer show in a near by city and was talking to a lot of computer junkies and some of the best repair techs that I can put my trust into, and they all said the same thing, Norton isn't as great as some people think, and they wouldn't trust their computer to Norton in a Million years, some even said that Norton works against you and not for you. Price is to high and there are a few good programs that are free, so why pay for something that works just as good, and you don't have to pay for it?

just my two cents on that subject.

[Skyview]

Someone mentioned something about Norton software in here, and I want to let you know something. I used Norton for a number of years, and I was so devoted to them that I just couldn't trust anyone else. I went to a computer show in a near by city and was talking to a lot of computer junkies and some of the best repair techs that I can put my trust into, and they all said the same thing, Norton isn't as great as some people think, and they wouldn't trust their computer to Norton in a Million years, some even said that Norton works against you and not for you. Price is to high and there are a few good programs that are free, so why pay for something that works just as good, and you don't have to pay for it?

just my two cents on that subject.

I'd have to agree with you on that one. I still have good memories of my experiences on the old Norton DOS products though. I use Kaspersky on my company laptop, and AVG & Avast on my home systems on my network and they work just fine.

[Skyview]

WEP is NOT the way to go for security on a router.  I was using WEP on my router and my nephew brought his laptop over and laughed and with  in 3min was in my system. 

WAP is safer but to a good hacker is not foolproof but can keep most people out.   

A word of advice when setting up a net work.

DO NOT LEAVE THINGS AT THEIR DEFAULT SETTINGS!!!

When setting up workgroups donââ,¬â,,¢t use WORKGROUP or MSHOME set it to something different.  And on the router change the ADMIN password.   These are the 2 most missed things when setting up a home networkââ,¬Â¦

This is one of the reasons I had our house wired for CAT6 Ethernet shortly after we bought it.