Margaret is correct. This is scarey, bad stuff. The possiblities of how you can get this are mind boggleing. I have an unofficial 'fix' here... I will copy ALL the info, and where it was obtained into this post. There's no official patch from Microsoft. There is an unofficial patch, which has been very carefully examined by the SANS team, and they say the patch is safe. They also say it is reversible \-\- that is, you can run the unauthorized patch now to temporarily protect your system, and it won't change anything that can't be changed back later. The SANS people are well\-respected security pros, to the best of my knowledge. This is what they say \-\- and the bold italics are in their original: This is a bad situation that will only get worse. The very best response that our collective wisdom can create is contained in this advice \- unregister shimgvw.dll and use the unofficial patch. You need to trust us. (for the full SANS warning, see http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?rss&storyid=996 ) The most basic form of protection is to run the following command line on any Windows machine, at a command prompt. This should be done as Administrator, on Windows systems which have admin functionality: regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll This command disables thumbnail previews of graphics in Internet Explorer. It can be reversed later, if the hurricane passes by. Turning off thumbnail previews in MS email clients and MS Messenger would also be a good idea, if you use them. Don't click to view graphics from unknown or untrusted sources. For more information, see the SANS site above, and the CERT\-USA warning: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/181038#solution MS also has their own page on this exploit: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...ory/912840.mspx This being said, I'm off to move my pix, and I wouldn't look at any here, for awhile either. Makes sense to close down your preview pane in your email, too, just incase. I don't know enough about what's going on to know if I just said the stupidest thing in the world, or not. But lots of folks are worried... My friend who posted the above is comparing this Virus Alert to Hurricane Katrina. It might hit and devestate, or it might just sail on by, leaving little damage in its wake, right now we can't know. Another friend inserted the following info. Turn off your Fax Viewer too, from what I read. I sure hope no one is still allowing HTML in their emails. This thing (and I may have some terminology wrong) can come at you in an email as a microscopic 1x1 pixel transparent graphic, that is you can't even see it. So set your email client to accept text only, turn your spam filters up high and watch the news. This has been compared to going nuclear from standard warfare. Good luck everyone.

IE 7? I downloaded the beta version on my home computer months ago. I like it, but it is different enough to take some time to look through all of the controls. Sammy, Microsoft is the company that produces operating systems and tools (as well as game systems) for use on computers. Other than their game systems, Microsoft does not manufacture computers of their own (unlike Apple). An "operating system" is the software that runs the computer, no operating system, no running computer. There are many different operating systems, some are used for PCs some are used for large-scale servers. Windows is an operating system that is produced by Microsoft and Windows runs on many different makes and models of computer (Apple uses its own operating system on their computers). "Vista" is the next version of the Windows operating system, XP is the promary current version (you will see a banner with the version when you turn on the computer and it is booting up). Internet Explorer is a tool that runs on Windows that provides browsing capabilities. You can use IE to browse files inside of your computer or to access remote files, which is what you do when you "browse" the internet. Microsoft, unfortunately, likes to cram a lot of stuff into their upgrades, without really explaining how they work and how to configure. Sorry, sometimes I get all geeky. ;-) I do wish they would just take your current settings and incorporate them into the new version of IE when it is installed. Things are tricky enough with differences in internet providers (Cox Cable in your case), PC capacities, user preferences and home networking options (a few years ago this one didn't exist) to make things more difficult.

Snidely - good point about not removing things if they're not causing trouble - lest they turn out to have been needed. So I have left some things that I have no idea about. I did delete Dell Stage - bc. it's a real pain - gets in the way all the time (my daughter who's had this on her laptop for 2 years confirmed that it's just in the way). I did all the microsoft updates, ran a few antivirus, got rid of what I want to get rid of, and it's mostly good to go. Here's the trouble that remains: I can't get the printer working. It's a Canon Pixma MX850 - on the home network. I did not want to install the Canon disk bc. it has a ton of it's own bloatware. So I went to Canon and downloaded the driver - as well as the IJ utility software (I think that helps the computer find a printer on the network). Went to devices and printers, added the printer and made it the default printer. It shows up in printers and devices, but when I go to print something, it fails. Troubleshooting says the test page didn't print bc. something else is in the queue. But there is nothing else in the queue. I opened the queue from my pain desktop (that's connected to the printer) - and there's no documents in the queue. Went to the printer queue on DH's lapto; - it also shows nothing in the queue. I can print from other computers. Don't know what else to do. And I just remembered that I did not see Java. It didnt come up as needing updating when I ran the Secunia scan. I am not sure which programs need it, but can imagine my husband being stumped if he tries to do something that needs Java and asks him to install. I'd like to install it for him. Got to remember that. I also have a question about Microsoft Security Essentials. Twice now it found something bad - and I selected to remove the couple of files. Does this AV just run in the background or do I also need to run scans? Thank you. Lynn.

I would bet if it is a new pc with windows 7 it will be 64 bit. You can always try to do the install and let it find the printer, it will give you the option to find your model number in the list and it may well just get the proper driver and install. It did that with mine. this link may provide some info for you 7 Windows 7 Printer Installation Tips How to Set Up a Printer in Windows 7How to Set Up a Printer in Windows 7 and the windows 7 forums are an excellent source of info they have some great tutorials there too. Here is a link that might be useful: 7forums