Jane, I do not have Vista but help a few who do. From reports I have read elsewhere it would certainly appear that the MS firewall is a capable program. Any negative comments seem to come from the anti MS crowd rather than with substantial info to support any doubts on the firewall. As I noted I was asking out of curiosity in case perhaps you had read anything to suggest the MS firewall was not up to par. Grandms you can at any time click on the Zonealarm icon to bring up the window then click to check for updates - or wait out the 60 days,

Ta-da!!! I fixed it. For the 31st time (!) I opened ZA and looked through the various screens. I found "Appplication Control" and for Spywareblaster there were red "X's" under "inbound" and "outbound". In this same table SAS (which is updating) had green checks. There was no indication that I could/should click on the "X's" but I thought to do so; a menu appeared which allowed me to change the red "X's" to green checks. After this, when I tried to update Spywareblaster, it worked. Thank you all for considering my problem. Mike_kaiser, you're probably correct, and I'm heavy on the security programs. This computer is about 7 years old and over the years, I've slowly added these programs (and very recently, the router) as they've been recommended here. When one has been recommended I don't recall a corresponding recommendation to get rid of "x". So the list has grown. My computer seems to be running fine and isn't particularly slow so I haven't inquired about what I could remove.

Try this first, Here are Instructions that may help resolve the Issue Reregister DLL files that are associated with Cryptographic Services To register .dll files that are associated with Cryptographic Services, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, and then click Run. 2. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK. 3. At the command prompt, type the following commands, pressing ENTER after each line: Note Click OK if you are prompted. Note Microsoft Windows 2000 does not include the Sccbase.dll file. If you are running a version of Windows 2000, omit the Sccbase.dll file. regsvr32 softpub.dll regsvr32 /u wintrust.dll regsvr32 /u initpki.dll regsvr32 /u dssenh.dll regsvr32 /u rsaenh.dll regsvr32 /u gpkcsp.dll regsvr32 /u sccbase.dll regsvr32 /u slbcsp.dll regsvr32 /u cryptdlg.dll regsvr32 /u softpub.dll exit 4. Restart your computer. 5. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK. 6. At the command prompt, type the following commands (press ENTER after each command). Note Click OK if you are prompted. Note Microsoft Windows 2000 does not include the Sccbase.dll file. If you are running a version of Windows 2000, omit the Sccbase.dll file. regsvr32 softpub.dll regsvr32 wintrust.dll regsvr32 initpki.dll regsvr32 dssenh.dll regsvr32 rsaenh.dll regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll regsvr32 sccbase.dll regsvr32 slbcsp.dll regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll regsvr32 softpub.dll exit

First you need to see if this is a legit program called System Mechanic or a virus called System check - from what I have just read. What are you trying to achieve? What operating system do you have? Only you can decide if you wish to spend the money, I like free programs personally. This is one of those cases where I advise something I always fail to do myself. One should create a Restore point prior to installing stuff so they can revert if the new software does not live up to expectation.