[Antivirus Help]

At times I advise on several Antispyware forums, but I am definitely NO

HijackThis Expert . What antispyware programs do you have and have you

sought advise in their HijackThis forum(s) ? These experts can spot

problems not obvious to the rest of us .

You may want to consider asking the Microsoft MVPs ( Most Valuable

Professionals ) on the forums at www.aumha.net !?

[How to Un-Install AVG]

Have you tried the AVG "subforum" on the forums at www.castlecops.com

for advice ? I prefer Avast ( www.avast.com ) to AntiVir .

[Do Automatic Updates Really Work?]

On my XP SP1 machine, I have turned OFF "Automatic Updates", since I

want to "review" each one. I have subscribed to Microsoft's newsletter

that gives details about each of the updates & when they are released.

I go to the microsoft site to get the updates; there has been recent news

that 1 or 2 of the recent updates may cause problems !? There is quite a

discussion of this by Microsoft MVPs ( Most Valuable Professionals ) on the

forums at www.aumha.net .

[Antivirus Help]

I have been using Sygate Personal Firewall 5.6 & the latest version of Avast

for months without any problems. Has your HijackThis log been reviewed

by a HijackThis Expert on the forum of your Antispyware program ?

And have you tried "Ewido", available at www.ewido.net/en ? This program

"specializes" in detecting & removing trojans, worms, dialers, etc .

[A lot of issues....]

As a novice registry cleaner user, I use the free "evaluation copy" of

Registry First Aid from www.rosecitysoftware.com . This "copy" will only

let "Safe" items it finds be deleted, and only a maximum of 11 entries

per scan, which can go quite quickly if you use the "Back" button after

each scan. When a scan starts, select "View by Safety Level" and you

will see how many "Safe" items it finds. I have used this product for

several months and have no subsequent problems after allowing it to

"clean" the "Safe" items, though I did select the "make a backup" option

during installation. I delete the "backups" no sooner than 10 days later .