The US Government uses Norton. I was required to install that on every system that an Air Force contracted company worked with. They would also set up a local update for every week and it was fuly tested before it was released into the local servers. If one of the programs had problems with Norton, the whole company wouldn't be impacted suddenly. In any case, Fidelity Investments also had a special custom made virus scanner program (F Prot) that was updated every week and and sometimes even more often. If you use Windows XP, be sure to download the latest SP3. I don't use Internet Explorer 7, as I feel that version 6 is just fine. Here, I hate I.E. and actually use one of the older Netscape versions, which seem to hate a few web sites. Trojans are a bit less damaging today, if you keep up on Java Script, malware updates and the MS web site for the latest OS software patches. I avoid Vista like a plague! Many newer systems today can't even go back to XP due to the lack of support for older XP drivers and the like. When Vista arrived, it took about 4-6 months for some hardware companies (printers, video boards, etc.) to come out with proper drivers. Usually if you have a choice to 'save to disk' or run after download, you choose save to disk. Create a folder for these downloads and then scan that folder to see if the files that were downloaded are valid and have no traces of possible viruses. Believe it or not, the MAC was the first home computer to get viruses. PC problems came later, but have been much worse in recent years. Luckily, some ISP companies offer free antivirus software, like McAfee. Interesting to note, McAfee, for sveral years, has been owned by Symantec who also make Norton. Maybe someday things will settle down, but you always have to be careful, especially if you see an unfamiliar popup telling you that you have a virus and to 'click here' to find out more info. Thats a sure sign of a mean virus being allowed ont your system. Its always a good idea to make a full back up once each week, and to have at least two backups dating back more than 2 weeks. Today, a terabyte hard drive is less than $100, so many backups can be sent to a huge drive like that.

Here is the direct link from AVG on exactly how to upgrade your AVG. As Owbist says do not remove your current version. direct from the FAQ page on AVG "To install AVG 8.0 Free Edition over the current AVG 7.5 Free Edition please proceed as follows: * Download the latest AVG 8.0 Free Edition installation file from our website. * When you are prompted, please do not open this file directly from the Internet, but click the "Save" button and choose a location, where the installation file should be stored (we recommend saving the file to the Desktop). * Reboot your computer. * Close all running applications, locate the downloaded AVG 8.0 Free Edition installation file (it has a four color square icon and its name starts with AVG_...) and launch the installation. * Follow the installation wizard to install the new AVG 8.0 Free Edition(previous version of AVG will be automatically removed during the installation process). * If a restart is required after the initial configuration, please reboot your computer to finish the installation" Here is a link that might be useful: AVG directions on how to upgrade to AVG8

When I had my computer worked on last year, I noticed a an Apple software on my computer. I am sure had a new oung man work on my computer. As, I have been going there for years and it has only been the owner and one other knowlegable man in there. When I took my computer home nothing worked right and I had to take it back. I am sure this is when it was added also. Looking around on the computer I noticed it was a humungous file. I guess I will just leave it alone. By the end of the year I will be upgrading to another computer and new windows software. I am hoping they get the windows 8 changed by then or I will go with windows 7. I really don't want to as the support will end with it in a few short years. Thank you everyone for responding to my question.

Yes, you've verified exactly what I described: many university undergraduate engineering programs don't have an acutal design program for engineer students until their final senior (4th year). That's one, single design program for undergraduate engineers. Drafting programs are not design programs. Drafting programs are why we have so many "help me" threads on this forum, i.e., the house designs were created by drafters and CAD operators who have no design sense or design experience at all. They cannot design. They can only draft. Undergraduate architectural programs (which are 5 years) typically start actual design studios the second semenster of the freshman year, and continue to graduation after 5 years. That's 9 semesters of true design studios, ranging from small scale to large scale projects of all kinds. It's why one cannot compare the design knowledge and skill of engineer students to that of architectural students. Of course, architectural students likely know beans about higher math, physics and the sciences... Ask me how I know all this...