What great options. Digitizing a lifetime of music, voice recordings, movies, etc sure is time consuming. But it's wonderful there are so many options out there. Raven- I had forgotten all about Heartland catalogue. It's been probably 20 years since I ordered from them. Those are some great gadgets. The one with lp too is a bit pricey - esp. since I have a cd recorder connected to my turntable. It's a lot less convenient than having it by the computer - but it works well. The one for just tapes looks good. Grandms'- I don't need the turntable portion, but your post made me think that with the right cables (do you happen to know what they are?) I should be able to hook up my old compact stereo/cassette player to my computer. My question about that has always been that I don't think i have an input into my sound card. Does that mean I have an integrated sound card (without its own input port). But there must be cables that could transfer from a stereo to a usb port. Heck - are there cables that go to a firewire port - or perhaps that's overkill for music files. What's Pyro? Did that come with turntable - or just a program you have? I assume Roxio cd creator could do that - burn a cd? how did you find Cakewalk easier than Audacity? I think I've heard good things about both. And Urlee and Jean love Audacity and find it easy. So I'd appreciate any other thoughts in deciding which software to use? Thanks. Lynn.

Hello again nice people, I have a question. Since Zep has led me through so many steps and has helped me clean up some of the junk on my computer my question is this. What will the results be if I can find no way to get Java downloaded? Is it absolutely necessary that Java be on the computer for things to work right. I see no results from NOT having it, other than not being to play some games, I play most any game I want without any trouble, most of them very graphic. I still need to delete the Firefox Beta version and keep the right version, but I've got to straightened out the shortcut Icons on my desktop, they're both intertwined. Other than that I don't seem to be having any problems. I don't know if there is something else on the Hijack list that needs to be addressed, Zep didn't say so I assume that there is not. I did get the problem with Incredimail straightened out. That also was a register error. After today I am headed for hopefully a wonderful trip to Yellowstone National Park. I will check on this thread as soon as I get back to see what you think about leaving well enough alone. Thanks again for your time and sharing your knowledge.

Anything is possible at BB. The first one I took back had a corrupt hard drive the second developed so many problems that a very qualified award winning certified Microsoft volunteer who has followed that old computer suspects this is what happened. As for the new one I had to replace. Costco concierge service did diagnostics on the phone with me and came to the conclusion that it needed to be returned because the operating system was not responding at all and perhaps the hard drive wasn't installed. It was plugged in and had a friend go through all of the plugs as was asked of us by the service. I took out all of the sockets in my place and had them replaced to meet the country wide code and also bought new surge protectors for my computer. I also have not put in any Microsoft software. The more I read the more I am not qualified to put it in and take care of the problems that most likely will ensue. I called a Microsoft store. There is a central phone bank in Texas that answers for all the calls that come in to the stores around the country. They could not get the store near me to answer the phone and suspected they were all busy. They tried three times as I stayed on the phone. I am not allowed to have the direct number to the store. There are many menus and the idea is you can help yourself by listening to these menus. I want to know if I can bring my PC and buy some software and have them install it.. This can all cost about the same price as my computer. I would like to talk with Bill Gates. The stores have also got bad reviews around the country. There are some excellent ones too but din't reign. I appreciate the idea of not wanting to go through a learning curve for both an operating system that people complained about so vehemently that they made one revision that will help me but then you have software that is either a rental package or a package deal that has difficulty with Outlook That's okay if I have step-by-step instructions or near an IT person which I always had at work. If Bill Gates is reading this please leave a message.

I will second Elmer's comments in regard to uninstalling IE...DON'T. In fact, I will take it a step further...don't uninstall or try to delete ANYTHING that came with Windows or was put there by an update of Windows. If you do you are not just asking for trouble...you are begging for it. If there is something you don't like about the OS, you are free to ignore it and not use it. It won't do any harm to you except take up a little space on your hard drive. OTOH, if you are running out of hard drive space because you have too much crud on the disc then feel free to disregard this post. You have chosen your own fate and you deserve it. I will try to stay out of it. Have a nice day!