JeevesBond — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:16:00 +0000

LOL, exactly. Similair situation here

I can also "smell" when a virus or spyware is on my computer, then I start watching the process list like a hawk and digging-up the registry. It's fun if you like that sort of thing.

I guess the moral to both our stories is: Prevention is better than cure

And yes, to anyone else who's reading this I would recommend AV also.

mairving — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:38:12 +0000

JeevesBond wrote: Mairving has a point... Personally I don't have any Anti-virus software, but then I'm sat behind a hardware firewall and don't browse using MS products, funnily enough I've never had a problem...

...But then I am a bit nuts.

I would still advise having AV. Funny though that I had to replace a HD on my sister-in-laws computer. She then proceeded to tell me that she wasn't running any anti-virus software. From past experience this means a day or so of removing viruses, trojans and spyware. Well I put in her hard drive and ghosted the old one unto the new one. The I installed AVG and did a scan. The scan was clean. I then installed MS Anti-Spyware and did a scan. It was clean also. Now I knew that she had been using it this way for at least a couple of years. I also knew that she wasn't real saavy with things. So after investigating I discovered why she was virus/spyware free. It was because of 2 things. 1.) She was using Firefox, not IE. 2.) She was using Gmail and not Outlook Express.

JeevesBond — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:52:27 +0000

Mairving has a point... Personally I don't have any Anti-virus software, but then I'm sat behind a hardware firewall and don't browse using MS products, funnily enough I've never had a problem...

...But then I am a bit nuts.

Jal — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:40:26 +0000

Thank you very much for your help, JeevesBond and Mairving. I'll probably end up going for the method you describe, JeevesBond but until then I'll check out the other software options. This new version of Norton is driving me nuts!!

mairving — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:10:17 +0000

I do have to say that Norton Internet Security and McAfee Internet Security Suite run neck and neck when it comes to the worst AV products around. Very resource heavy, hard to get rid of and mess up so many things. What I would advise is to get AVG free edition, Microsoft Anti-Spyware and make sure that you have XP SP2 with the firewall turned on. This combo is free, much lighter on the wallet and the resources and works much better IMO. I would do this even though you just paid for NIS.

JeevesBond — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:04:23 +0000

It's simpler than you think if they've got network cards and some network cable

Does your router connect via USB or do you connect to it via LAN?
Basically you want:

Internet --> ADSL Router/Lan Switch --> PC's Connected via LAN

Most ADSL Routers come with LAN built-in these days, something similair to this: http://www.netgear.com/products/details/DG834G.php (although that's not an endorsement or recommendation of a specific product, just an example ) which will do the lot for you, including giving the other PC's a switch to plug into.

Here's quite a good tutorial, it also shows the differences between the method you're using and the one I'm describing:
http://www.freedom2support.net/adsl/networking.php

Jal — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 15:16:17 +0000

Thank you very much for your reply. I'm connected to the internet via ADSL. I'm not sure how to let them to connect via the LAN. I set up the network using the the Network Connections wizard in Windows XP for using the shared internet connection. Any ideas (or link to sites where I can learn) how to set it up to connection via the LAN?

Thank you

Jan

JeevesBond — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 16:49:32 +0000

Well I should forget using Internet connection sharing for a start, let everyone connect to the Internet via the LAN instead.

How're you connecting to the Internet? ADSL/Cable/Dialup?