Spybot - Search and Destroy (spyware killer)

AdAware (for the very few things Spybot doesn't catch)

Defragment regularly

That's all I use, and I don't have any problems I don't cause myself
Everything runs nice and smooth.

Digital_trucker, Get SpyWare Blaster. It's a nice little program that stops you from ever downloading certain spyware that Spybot or Adaware has picked up on.
Since i've downloaded, I receive from both Spybot and Adaware ( NO SPYWARE )
[Message Edited]

At the risk of being engulfed in flames.. here goes my 2 cents worth:
1. Forget repair utilities. Ie.. Norton Utilities, Systemworks etc..
instead, practice sensible computing habits like regular maintainence like defrag (diskeeper for that), anti-virus, and run adaware periodicly.
2. Keep your files organized. You wouldn't go to your office and just fling files on the floor.. so don't do it with your computer. Develop a system and use it.
3. Have at minimum, 2 hard drives in your system. One is primarily your operating system and programs. The other is for your files and any data that you have created with your programs. Anything that you don't want to lose, keep it on the second drive.

I have found that invariably, it is much easier to reformat and do a fresh install of windows as opposed to trying to find and fix a nasty issue that eludes me. The so called fix all utilites just hog resources, and I have seen them actually cause crashes which would then force you to re-install windows anyway.
Sisoft Sandra is a good utility for diagnosis however and can point to potential problems.
And last but not least... NEVER ever, add additional fonts to your windows fonts folder other than what programs that need them install. Place your extra fonts in a different folder and get a font mgmt tool like font explorer to load/unload your extra fonts. I saw a system with 7000 fonts installed that would absolutely drag until we moved the "other than default" fonts out of that folder.

Phoon talks a lot of sense. Norton Systemworks though is great for picking up some of the problems though. I have had it for 3 years now and run Windoctor every week and Speed Disk every two to four weeks depending on how big the changes have been made to my system. Adaware is a big must as well.

Phoon, about the font thing.........I once asked about installing fonts, because I had heard of problems caused by installing too many. I got some interesting anwsers... here's a couple;

#1  by  c242 - 7/15/2003 9:49:05 PM  
1223 fonts installed here and no problems at all.

#6  by Admin Jafo - 7/19/2003 7:57:24 AM  
2000 and XP can handle any number of fonts....but Win 9x has a limit based on the names [their total length], not a specific number of fonts...

Keep the spyware out and keep your HDs defragged...that's all you really need to do.

unless you own a mac. In that case do nothing because they defrag themselves. I wonder if ad awre runs on a mac?

I curious as to whether anyone here has reached that alleged font limit on WinXP? Then, I'm curious as to whether people with less than 1000 fonts have font problems. A corrupt font directory caused blue screens of death(BSOD) in my old windows98 machine. Then, I learned what to do to prevent this sort of thing from happening. I even see traces of the same problems in my WinXP machine, and I always fix it. It's fairly easy to corrupt the font directory when installing and uninstalling programs. A corrupt font directory is much more of a problem than reaching a alleged number of fonts.

Yeha 98 had an issue with name space. 98SE addressed that I think didn't it?

Wow. 7,000 fonts? Not many needs that much fonts. I can think up possibilities however. Maybe something like publishing, etc.

two words...

"Extensis Suitcase"

@ IPlural

Agreed...