For any following along, this is something bad for Vista, or Acer, or me, or all the above. I took the trouble to reload the system with the DVD that I created for recovery of factory load. This worked very well, if a bit slow (30 minutes or more, wasn't counting) and pointed out one advantage to the partitioned HDD as shipped, Only the "C" partition is affected by the reload, not the "D" for data, of course at this point I didn't have any data. This time I started with my home network powered down, so when the new restart, another 30 minutes, was finished there was no "home network" lingering around. Then I set up a dial up and things seems to be better, at least there was a Vista (new) dialog box that showed my computer connected directly to the Internet, not going thorough "other something/forget". This didn't last, soon after bringing up IE7 the browser came to a halt, dial up still connected, just no data passing. The Visa (new again) dialog window now showed the same extra link between the network and the Internet, big red X. But, I was able to start the download of 10 Vista updates/absent the browser. This did fail too after a few minutes, but not before several of the updates (total size 26+mbytes, slow on a dial up) were received and installed, now trying to get the others with a restart of the connect for updates. I hope one of the updates will fix the problem, if not I'll not spend days on the telephone with Acer support, which seem to be a toll call, not 800 call, back the whole thing will go to Walmart, they gave me 15 days for a return.

If you need a free ISP Netzero Use IE to view page or it doesn't work. I used Netzero to get my dial-up modem working in Vista, that's another story with a dual boot XP/Vista. Ended up with 2 modems in the same computer, since Vista said my XP modem was in use. Another free ISP is Juno. Just got a message today from them telling me about the new Vista ready version. Both Netzero & Juno have a Connection Wizard for download that I used to pinpoint my connection problems, it gave me a little insight. So are you impressed with the Vista Connection Wizard? I ran that thing so many times.

Before I switched to broadband, I used poetworld for quite a number of years. I recommended this ISP to a friend who still uses them. When my friend got a new computer two years ago and had trouble connecting online with his broker, the poetworld tech people actually talked with the broker tech people to try to solve the problem. At the time, my friend was succesfully online with other sites, so the problem was not with the ISP but poetworld, nevertheless, stepped in to help him. There is no contract to sign. Use them on a month-to-month basis. They have many "local" numbers so you don't incur long distance charges. When I switched to broadband and discontinued their service they were extremely gracious and thanked me for my business. Other than having been a very satisfied past customer, I have no connection to them. (And no, you do not have to be a poet.) Here is a link that might be useful: Poetworld

I have no opinion on McAfee having never used it. Read plenty of downside comments of course. Regarding anti virus I use AntiVir and Avast, one on each of my 2 main machines. I had been an AVG fan for years till version 8 appeared, it is still on one computer and running with no problems but removed from the other 2. On the firewall Zonealarm has been around forever providing a good free service. Recently I moved away as I had conflicts that I felt were induced by Zonealarm and now use PC Tools Firewall Plus, a free program. Anti malware, I use the 3 you mention plus Threatfire on one machine as it was offered bundled with the PC Tools firewall. I use one or 2 of these these every couple of weeks being sure to update the definitions before I run a scan. I have no particular preference. Spywareblaster runs in the background of course and only needs updating.