Have you downloaded Mozilla Firefox and MacAffe Site Advisor...a pretty good combination to prevent junk, pop-ups etc....yeah Vista has its drawbacks, from what I've heard http://www.siteadvisor.com/ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

My choice is WinXP with a few pieces of GOOD third-party security software. That sort of problem isn't the computer's fault. Who installed the security software? What security software is loaded on there in the first place; good stuff or crapware?

You probably bought because they convinced folks that this was the best they had built in yrs. I personally still run XP with Vista in VirtualPC so I can help my customers when they call Yes I know this is really long but you sound really upset so feel you need all the help I can send, hope it helps in some small way. more than likely you still have Nortons on it for your virus protection, first you need to remove it in control panel replace with AVG 8.0, spybot S&D 1.6, Glary all free and I will give you a list of URL's for helpful web sites and last but not least reset you msconfig do all this and Vista should be more tame and easy to use, also instructions for installing any software as a administrator in Vista. PROGRAMS FOR VISTA LOTS OF FREE PROGRAM CAN BE FOUND AT www.pcworld.com LOOK FOR THE DOWNLOAD AT TOP OF PAGE, THEN CLICK THEN GO TO THE BLUE SEARCH BOX AND TYPE IN VISTA DOWNLOADS AND A LIST OF 39 OR MORE WILL COME UP. THERE ARE QUITE A FEW THAT ARE FREE AND SOME THAT WOULD COME IN HANDY UNDER SHAREWARE IF NEEDED TO FIX A COMPUTER AND YOU HAD NO OTHER CHOICES. ZONEALARM- FIREWALL AVG 8.0 VIRUS & SPYWARE Or http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe (for those running Vista you must have all updates done plus SP1 to use) AVG-ANTI VIRUS (WHICH IS THE SPYWARE,MAL-WARE,ROOTKITS PROGRAM) http://www.filehippo.com/download_avg_antispyware/ SPYBOT 6.1 Or www.safer-networking.org 1. IT WILL SAY HOME OF: : The home of Spybot-S&D! 2. UNDER THIS YOU WILL SEE THE WORDS: Download. Home of SpyBot-S&D, and 6 different languages. Simply click on the language of your choice for example; ENGLISH 3. THIS IS THE HOME PAGE, LOOK DOWN AND FIND UNDER PRODUCTS, SEE 1.6.0 AND RIGHT UNDER PRODUCTS WORD YOU SEE PICTURE OF S&D CLICK IT, THIS IS ALL SAME LINE. 4. NEXT PAGE SAYS OVERVIEW, SCROLL DOWN AND SEE AREA, CLICK FIRST DOWNLOAD. 5. THESE ARE THE MIRROR SITES, THERE ARE 11 TO CHOOSE FROM, Safer-Networking Ltd. #1 ON THESE CLICK DOWNLOAD AND BOX OPENS, CHOOSE WHERE YOU Safer-Networking Ltd. #2 GOING TO SAVE FILE TO, DESKTOP, MY DOCUMENTS AND OPEN AND Safer-Networking Ltd. #3 AND RUN FROM THERE FILE IS 14.3MB ( only 2 steps here) (these are always my first choice as they usually work well first time) BN FileForum (This is my second choice just a little harder to use, more steps) PAGE WILL OPEN, (BLUE DOWNLOAD NOW 14,380 KB) CLICK blue / NEW PAGE OPENS. MAY HAVE TO CLICK YELLOW BAR AT TOP OF PAGE TO ALLOW FILE TO DOWNLOAD ON THIS ONE, AND THEN DOWNLOAD WILL BEGIN 6. BOX OPENS CHOOSE SAVE AND DO SO TO YOUR DESKTOP OR TO YOUR DOCUMENT FILE AND OPEN AND RUN FROM THERE FILE IS 14.3MB GOOGLE EARTH GOOGLE DESKTOP BELARC IE PRIVACY KEEPER Ccleaner GLARY UTILITLIES (you may have to look under registry repair programs) OR . http://glarysoft.com/rrd.html ANOTHER PROGRAM TO PUT ON IS JAVA 6.1 AND TO GET THIS YOU MUST GO TO JAVA sun AND DOWNLOAD. Again be sure use newest version for vista. WHERE TO DOWNLOAD AVG AND SPYBOT, IE PRIVACY KEEPER: ALL CAN BE FOUND AT http://www.snapfiles.com go to the freeware section, look for Internet Cleanup, then look for the software called IE Privacy Keeper, AVG & spybot are under anti-virus and spyware tools etc ZoneAlarm is also found at this web site under firewalls. For free registry repair programs or to http://www.snapfiles.com and to their freeware section to find them also. A good freebie is go to yahoo or Google and type in Belarc and download and run that program, print out results, run and do so ever so often. Will tell you what on PC from hardware, Software, key codes etc Go http://www.radarsync.com/ this software will find them and update them for you all for free, just click on the red download button (start free download free version) 1.18 MB is the size of file just choose where you would like to save it too. Backing up your drivers? Go here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/ Very simple yet great software that finders your drivers and backs them up for up to what ever place you choose, such as my documents, CD, DVD, jump drive. Click the green download box (arrow) next page where it says DriverBackup! 1.0.3(XPVista) for English. Next page again click DriverBackup 1.0.3 then Dr13engzip, you may have to give page permission to open (see yellow bar, right click here for options) choose download file , file is 51. 7 KB choose save and to where. Note these programs for the most part WILL NOT work on Vista 64 bit Go to www.pcworld.com look at top of page for downloads, next page type in Vista 64 bit and look though the free downloads, there are a few. HELPFUL SITES FOR VISTA www.snapfiles.com go to the freeware section, lots of free software that is vista compatible www.howtogeek.com http://windrivers.com/VistaDrivers.html http://www.askvg.com/ (also good for XP) http://www.vista4beginners.com/ http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/ http://thevistaforums.com/ http://mintywhite.com/tech/ http://winvistaclub.com/ http://www.windvis.com/ http://www.vistahelpline.com/ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607 www.pcworld.com for many Vista compatible software click download, next page type what you’re looking for in blue search box and new page opens http://vistaonwindows.com/ http://www.bc.edu/offices/help/meta-elements/doc/articles/html/SW-vista-updates.shtml http://help.com/tag/381949-vista this one is much like our site with post answers just on Vista http://www.web-articles.info/e/a/title/Windows-Vista-help/ http://vistasupport.mvps.org/ http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/using-the-windows-vista-control-panel/200429 http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/how-to-use-windows-vista-speech-recognition.html this one is for the program on vista and speech recognition http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2109974,00.asp -speech recognition also Hopefully these sites will help you find the tips or software or maybe instructions on how to do that one little thing that was frustrating you. G_tech LOADING SOFTWARE IN VISTA Ever have that problem when trying to load your software in Vista and it goes clang, and message says: must be installed by Administrator. And you think to your self but I am the administrator and no one else is on the system. Thanks to Microsoft great idea there is a fail safe installed. 1. Go to Computer 2. Right Click on the software you are trying to open find (on Launcher) icon 3. Right Click and a drop down menu opens, look for option that says: Open as Administrator, click 4. The software opens and choose what ever put you wish to open in it This will allow the software to open now, should work for any legal software MSCONFIG Vista Startup reset 1.start 2. Control panel 3. System 4.Then under tasks 5. Click system protection -when the system protection box comes up click create at the bottom of the window. (This is the same as msconfig in XP) 6. When the menu opens you will see tabs, click the one that says STARTUP 7.uncheck all the boxes except the boxes that have to do with your VIRUS protection & INTERNET 8.click OK and close and then system will reboot 9.when the system opens again a box will says something like “don’t show this message again, system configuration etc” just put check mark in box and click OK *** By default any program that is needed to run PC will reset on its own, so don’t worry that you can turn off really important stuff, and you can always go back and turn any thing you want back on either one at a time or all.