Malwarebytes runs when you decide to update and run it. Not entirely accurate. There are versions of Malwarebytes...as in Malwarebytes Anti Malware Pro - v.2.0.1.1004...that I can personally attest does the following quite efficiently for a one time charge of $24.95 when I purchased it in 2011: "What it does for you Detects and protects against malware in real-time Blocks hacking and phishing attempts Schedules automatic scanning Offers three flexible scanning modes How it works for you Anti-Malware/Anti-Spyware Malicious website blocking Real-time protection Heuristic detection Integrated Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit Hyper Scan mode Scan/Database update scheduler Integrated Malwarebytes Chameleon Advanced malware removal Antivirus compatibility" I suggest you may wish to give it a look at: https://helpdesk.malwarebytes.org/forums HTH Anne

Luis it would appear that your hard drive is formatted in Fat32. As your error message notes, it can only create a backup up to 4 gigs making it useless for you. To check your computer click Start, click My computer the RIGHT click on the C:\ drive and click Properties at the bottom of the new window. Now look near the top and you will see whether your drive is Fat32 or the more Efficient NTFS. If your internal hard drive is either Maxtor or Seagate you can download free back up software from their site. This is a modified version of Acronis True Image and is a large file.

Hi, snidely, I appreciate the continued food for thought re: my Windows user account password situation. :-) :-) OTOH, I'm not sure your comments reflect the conventional wisdom (at least in the online articles I've been reading, as I try to keep an open mind about these things): 1. Just because "anyone wishing entry can easily enter" doesn't mean one should make it easy for the attackers. "Anyone wishing entry can easily enter" your home and/or car as well. Are you saying you yourself, therefore, never lock your car doors or the door and windows of your home ? Are you saying your email account password is "password" ? Most people say, "Make it as hard as possible for the hackers to get at your information." I tend to agree. 2. You're right -- I don't back up my phone conversations. But not backing up emails goes against just about everything I've ever read on basic email safety/security. We all have emails that we would surely not miss if they were gone for good. Apparently, none of yours is very important. You may be one of those "read and delete" types of email readers. That's fine. (In fact, that's the way I am with my RSS feeds.) But... many other people have important information in email messages, in saved online files, etc. That's why such online services as Google, Hotmail/Skydrive, etc. have such large storage to begin with, no ?.... So that people can keep things they want/need to keep. And the email companies themselves back up your email as a precaution and advise users to do the same (via forwarding to second account, using offline client, etc.). 3. I'm not so much concerned about someone getting by Aunt Helen's email address as I am someone hacking into my account and using my email address to send something to her (virus, porn, phishing email, etc.). If my contacts see a message coming from me (or presumably so), they're more likely to open it. That could spell trouble. Again, it's a matter of basic precautions against stuff we don't want to deal with. And that's another reason why I'm moving in the direction of having all my contacts/emails offline.... so that anyone getting into my online webmail account/interface will find nothing there to work with: no contact addresses, no emails stored, no online files, etc. Everything will be offline and backed up further on CD. 4. I'm not so sure the myriads of people who have had their email accounts compromised, emails deleted, contacts bombarded with spam, porn, virus-laden emails, etc. -- and many of whom have written about the nightmare of trying to recover the account -- and the emails) -- would call it all a "slight inconvenience." Again, Mat Honan's recent experience is frightening, and so are the stories of many others. Anyway, I truly appreciate your perspective. I always want to hear the different sides of an issue so I know I'm not missing an 'angle' on whatever I'm thinking about. :-) Btw.... how did you know I have an Aunt Helen ? ;-)

Jane - good question. I know I can use AOL free mail. It seems to me that this summer/early fall, I kept finding issues with AOL email - and several web-savvy people (like my web designer, etc. suggested that AOL is very troublesome in it's efforts to be helpful. Now I'm having trouble remembering why I was getting so frustrated with AOL. This is what I do recall. Not always being able to view embedded images (including an email blast from a non-profit I'm on the Board of). Difficulty formatting emails - if I cut and paste word documents in the email, it gets deliverd with all kinds of extraneous punctuation and symbols. I've had neighborhood listservs reject some of my postings bc. AOL sent so much gibberish with it. I had to rewrite it to get it sent to these neighborhood yahoo-group listservs in a format that was clear. I think (I could remember this wrong), that if I use AOL's fonts, colors, formatting - it may not get delivered that way. Now I'm opening AOL mail through the firefox browser and not using AOL software. I have found that the search function is vastly inferior to the search function if I opened AOl software. Having AOL email open in Firefox, the searching for emails is highly inaccurate - to the point of being almost useless. This is probably the single biggest frustration I have with AOL (now that I"m not using their software). I don't know that it would work any better if I used the free AIM instead of opening my AOL mail in Firefox. Not quite sure if and how AIM is different. Using AOL mail via Firefox - it just handles my emails badly. It will place emails in my old folder when I've marked them as save as new. I seem to have less control over where I save my emails. It seems to almost randomly decide whether it keeps the email in the new inbox - or places it in the old folder (where it eventually disappears). And I can only access old emails for a short period before they're deleted. And the recently deleted seem available for a tiny, tiny time compared with the AOL software. Jane - if your experience with AOL mail is different, please let me know. I know that it's just been very cumbersome and un-useful since I switched to Firefox this summer. Another problem -which may not be AOL, but could be firefox - or who knows what else. If I'm looking on craigslist and I want to inquire about an item for sale, I can't manage to reply to the poster. I hit the "reply to" button, it places that poster's anonymous contact info in the to: field - but when I hit send, it says that I can't send mail with parenthesis in the BCC field. I have not added anything in the BCC field - and if I click bcc field and delete everything in it, it still insists there are parenthese in the field and won't send the email. Gee - now that I start thinking about it, I guess I can recall all the frustrations I've been having with AOL (not using the AOL software). The reason I haven't cancelled my paid AOL account is bc. I still need to resort to going through AOL software to reliably access and search old emails. I will keep a free AOL account with my current email address - just so I can be reached by anyone I forgot to inform about my new address. And for those who forget and send to the old. I still want to receive those emails. But my hope is to use it less and less often bc. it's troublesome now. A different reason for not using AOL for my professional email is that it just doesn't look professional. (I presume that's one reason your husband using gmail for his professional correspondence - it's just more professional and less amateurish seeming to clients/customers.) not2bright- I appreciate the FWIW addition. It's a little over my head - but not completely. I do have a professional website - which my webdesigner set up to forward my emails to me. I'm not quite ready for setting up my personal email like this, but the more I hang out on this forum, the more I'm willing to attempt things that I once thought were not possible. Lynn.