Eldmannen

You can get HJT from here: http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

Sounds very strange... Use HijackThis and post a log.

I guess some of the entries are for Windows 95/98/ME since C:\Documents and Settings\ does not exist under those systems. *.log is a wildcard that delete all files that end with the .log extension. *.* is a wildcard that deletes all files of any extension.

Oh, I am glad I haven't tried it yet. Now that I know, I definitly will not try it. I cant stand nagware.

IRC is old school, but its still alive and kicking! What if you put webserver on the LAN, then you could live with only 3 ports, not 4. You could even put the Wi-Fi on the LAN too, then live with only 2 ports. Though you were only using firewall, then a 486 would be adequate. Didn't know you intended to run Squid, Dansguardian, POP, SMTP proxying and HTTP/FTP virus scanning.

Yes, using a LiveCD could be a bit of a hassle, I don't use it most of the time. Occasionally I use Linux some via shell accounts too. I use Windows, because it was what I have grown up with, and currently I have no harddisk to install a GNU/Linux distribution on. So I haven't migrated over fully yet, but I do intend to. I do try to stay away from proprietary software by avoiding them and using free/open source software, but so far im not 100% there yet, but I am on my way, most software on my system is FOSS.

USA invented the Internet, they have had Internet before everybody else. They should have an established and high-performance and capable Internet infrastructure. I wonder why you cant cheaply get high-speed Internet connections in USA? Maybe the greedy capitalist.

I am a big fan of free and open source software. I have used Slackware Linux before on my old SCSI disk, which unfortunately lately broke. Prior to that I used Red Hat Linux some, but since that disk broke, I almost only been using Ubuntu Linux via the LiveCD. Currently I am running Windows XP Professional, but almost all software is FOSS (free open source software) with a handful of exceptions, such as CCleaner, Ad-Aware and a few other software. I am skeptic to repartition an already partitioned drive. I am planning to run Linux when I buy a new computer, I am not sure when I am going to buy a new computer, I have money, but every week there is new parts out, it's hard to decide when to buy. I have thought about an Conroe with 2 gb RAM, SATA disk, etc. FOSS software that I currently use is Apache, PHP, MySQL, Miranda IM, FileZilla, OpenOffice, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, poEdit, Stellarium, SuperTux, WASTE, ClamWin, Wings 3D, HeidiSQL, Blender, DC++, Dev-C++, nmap, Stunnel, TrueCrypt, WinMerge, Zsnes, 7-Zip, ABC, Hydrogen, Inkscape, PuTTY, etc.

Sandboxing is a pretty interesting computer security concept, and I am sure that it is very good too. The Sandboxie website is butt ugly. Haven't tried it yet, would if it was more libre and came with source code.

o.o Gnumeric seems interesting...

In terms of computer security Outlook Express is a very risky program. Perhaps most worms on the Internet are spread through Outlook Express. It has very poor security. I would like to recommend you Mozilla Thunderbird. http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ It is much more safe and secure.

CCleaner does not delete the "My Picture" folder, it clears the temporary folder, specified in the %TEMP% environment variable. Deleted files are just that, deleted. Years lost of holiday pictures really sucks, those are cherished memories. I sincerely hope you are able to recover them and get them back. In the future, keep in mind to have backups of important files.

%windir% and %allusersprofile% are so called "environment variables". %windir% is a variable that points to the directory which Windows is installed to, this is usually C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT. %allusersprofile% points to a directory where stuff shared by all profiles are placed, this is usually C:\Documents and Settings\All Users

Trust me, you are not the only one that have experienced problems with Norton products.

Not a fan of running Java applications, especially not for small quick things. About Linux, yeah I really really should.

You can get try some help at some Linux-related channel on IRC. Freenode (irc.freenode.net) has plenty of Linux-people. You don't really need quad NIC firewall with 1.2 GHz and 512 mb RAM for a firewall, an old 486 would work just fine.

Get the "slim build".

The motherboard is a mini-ATX with socket 939. The processor is a socket 939 so it fits into the motherboard. The case is an ATX case, so mini-ATX fits into it. The HDD is a Seagate. Seagate is the only harddisk manufacturer with a warranty of 5 years, the other have less, usually 2-3.

Hmm... /etc/fstab is a configuration file for "file system table". (fstab) /dev/hdb1 is the first partition on the secondary IDE harddisk. /dev/hdc1 is the first partition on the third IDE harddisk. ext3 is a journaling file system based on ext2. You usually don't mount partitions in the root directory (/), you usually mount them under the /mnt/ directory, or if you mount many, then /mnt/disk1/ and /mnt/disk2/ or something similar. You can try state your problem and ask for further information on the Clark Connect community forums. Reformat everything was not a good idea if you cared for the data, as it makes recovery more difficult. I wouldn't install Win2k Adv Srv, for a firewall, Linux or OpenBSD is really great.

Uninstallation of a Norton products is a mystery... Lots of people say that Norton refuse to properly uninstall. It has even been speculated that Norton intentionally made it very difficult to get rid off. Lesson of today: Do not install any Norton products.

Have you tried starting Firefox in safe mode?

Some things to note. Just pointing out stuff. The socket for the motherboard and CPU is socket 939. The latest is socket AM2, however I think DDR2 memory is needed for that. The memory is DDR, the latest is DDR2, though it might be more expensive, don't know. The soundcard is an SB Audigy, it is 2 generations old or so, I think. There was Audigy then Audigy 2 then X-Fi. None the less, it probably is a good card. As for the graphics card, I would personally go with a nVidia, because ATI are powerhungry monsters and big heat generators, I think. nVidia probably is too, heh. The graphics card you selected has a fan, most graphics cards today unfortunately have a fan, not all though. Nvidia has better graphics drivers for Linux than ATI. As for the monitor, it is 8ms, shouldn't be a problem though unless you play FPS games. The review on the site you mentioned, said the quality wasn't all that great using an analog connection, so be sure to connect it to the graphics card via DVI. The hard disk has 8 mb cache, WD has models with 16 mb cache too. I am not sure of the price difference or performance difference, just pointing that out. Also Western Digital SE disk is the disk that produces the least noise on the market, and is also one of the best in terms of power consumption. As for the DVD, Lite-On have a good reputation of having cheap drives that are of quality up to par with Plextor. Good choice.

It is AbiWord not AbitWord. And yeah, it is good.

Nah, I haven't tried it yet. It has quite a restrictive license. Today I live without a PDF reader. I have heard of KPDF but as far as I know, there is no version for Windows?

The Western Digital Raptor is an expensive disk, but in terms of performance, it is the best Serial ATA disk on the market. The Samsung SpinPoint (T) have been praised as a silent, cheap disk, with good performance. http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/samsu...-t/index.x?pg=1