Hi Sharon,

Disable the auto-check feature from Microsoft immediately. Always go to the update site yourself and choose for yourself what you want to get. Not everything will be necessary for you, and some updates are not desirable in their early release states.

I'm not sure how you ended up with this feature enabled, but you don't want it.

As to McAfee, I cannot speak for them, but other than being very careful with installation, I have not heard of difficulty.

In general, all downloads from Dell are safe for Dell equipment--the exception being some of the recent BIOS upgrades, so be careful there.

If you can choose for yourself what you want from Microsoft, their updates and patches are just fine downloaded and installed from their site. For your own sake, however, it is my position that you should download whole versions of full programs to your hard drive, for install at a later point, because that method gives you a backup install copy. If something happens to your first install, it saves you the download time later. I do this with browsers, particularly, because they are so large. Patches should also be kept on your hard drive. Upgrades, I usually let them install those from their site. They keep track of what you have installed already if you do it that way.

As to McAfee, you'd have to speak with someone with experience with them.

All other downloads are case-by-case. If you use Netscape, decidedly avoid their on-site install and get the install file for yourself. Their install record isn't flawless, and again, you want the install copy for yourself. Drivers: you should also have the install files on your hard drive, but that is usually how they come anyway.

That's about all I can add, so good luck,

Kay

Hi Sharon, Kay has pretty much covered the answer. There is a MS Knowledge Base Q230318 that gives a work around to uninstall Critical Update Notification. I use McAffee and regularly (bi-weekly) update my DAT files. Be careful to distinguish between Upgrade and Update. I have version 4.02 of McAffee. There is a later version 4.03 and you may already have it. I only update my DAT files because the Upgrade only adds a few bells and whistles that use resources and don't really improve the virus scan ability. Some people have had problems with the Super DAT files. I stick with the regular updates and the latest one is 4004054.exe. I download to a folder on my desktop I call Incoming. I can then save the download to a zip disk for future use if necessary. Sometimes the Update button on my engine doesn't work so I just go to http://www.nai.com for the updates. One further precaution on Window Updates. I check the Knowledge Base for any known problems and then I only update one critical item at a time. They are installed directly. I then use the machine for a day or so to see if it causes any problems. If you download several at a time you may have trouble isolating a problem maker. HTH

How do you download new FlashBios to the hard drive. Specific instructions please. I then wish to put them on floppies "How do I do that. I have XP SP2. Dell Dimension 8200.

helleon,

The file to download and the instructions for using it are here. I should point out that BIOS upgrades are recommended only when the upgrade will correct a problem you are experiencing with your computer.

In the future you would be better off making a new post to ask any questions. This particular post is on page 1137 of this conference. I would never have seen it had it not been the latest post reflected when I looked at the statistics for this conference.

Message Edited by Denny Denham on 10-27-2004 01:45 PM

Hi there,

i will find the solution for your problem.