last night, for the first time tried the "half load" option (with Auto) and decided to use a some Cascade advanced gel since have container of that left and i'm into the whole experimenting thing :) it seems that "normal" according to the manual hits a lower peak temperature than Auto can... nothing terribly dirty (not pots and pans this time, but some dried on steak fat, but it cleaned well and in shorter time than usual (maybe 1:40). i may be using this half load option more often as i think that fits our usage patterns better. i'm still very nervous about leaving dishes in the DW more than the "day of" due to a long time ago experience of ants in the dishwasher... but...what struck me was the fact that as opposed to our old GE, the house did not smell of Cascade during the DW running. i'm not opposed to that smell like many, but i liked the fact that it didn't permeate the whole house. pretty cool and suggests that the Bosch is better sealed than the GE? @kashmi: thanks for the offer. i'm not sure what tests to suggest, but i'll let you know. i do have the suspicion that one dirty item and a lot of other clean items would really be hard for the "auto sensor" to figure out, if my guess of how it works is correct (checking water clarity down the drain). in reality, i don't think i would/should be doing too many pots and pans in the dishwasher...it just isn't a good use of space. aside: i'm also recognizing the benefits of the many foldable tines in our old GE and the top level Bosch 800plus 9ER. i wish the racks in our 7ER had more foldable options, but there was no way i was going to pay an extra $700 for those options. wondering aloud: how durable are these tines anyway? i'm wondering if i should be extra cautious (i have been so far) about them getting bent by pots and pans or heavy itens resting on them (ie, when they aren't/can't be folded down)

to have the pc boot faster you would need to eliminate items from your start up menu through Run-> msconfig start up tab, and also you can go into services and select either manual or disable rather than auto if it is one that you know can be removed from auto. when you do a change in start up as you boot the next time a pop up comes up warning you that start up has changed simply check the box for do not show this again and continue on. Alter Startup Programs in Windows XP

Open up Internet Explorer and select the "Internet Options..." option from the Tools menu. Click to the Content tab and click on the "AutoComplete..." button. Uncheck any of the checkboxes that specify information that you do not want to have automatically filled in. Then click on the "Clear Forms" and/or "Clear Passwords" buttons to clear out that information. Click on the OK button, followed by the Apply button, and the OK button again.

blocking sp3 does not in anyway block any other updates so do not worry about that. Minnie what has you confused? did you not know sp3 had been installed on your pc? It went out through auto updates as stated in the original post. susanjn be very very happy do a little dance and rejoice you are one of the lucky ones that is all I can say. (or you have not noticed yet the effects) The horrors others have experienced are quite true and quite numerous and still happening. Anyone doing the install with out first disabling all other programs and most especially any type of security programs including AV, firewall etc can definitely expect problems. Best way to do it still is to go to the actual sp3 download site and download the full sp3 update version(NOT from windows updates), then turn off every thing on the pc or best start in safe mode and try to install. If you have IE7 you better uninstall it prior to putting on sp3 as specified in the instructions listed in an above post. I still don't have it don't plan on getting it.