I keep meaning to post to this thread, but have not had the time to come up with a full response. I got Broderbund's "3D Home Architect Landscape Design Deluxe 6" for Fathers Day. I know that it has gotten horrible user reviews, but there is a review online (Garden Gate I think) that made it sound wonderful. I think most of the user reviews are correct. So far it has been a struggle to get anything useful out of it. Off the top of my head, hear are a couple of my major complaints: * There are 20 or so house templates and that is all you can use. You have to buy another piece of software to be able to create houses. * The terrain mapping is limited and difficult to use. My yard just has a couple slopes, but I have not been able to get anything that looks very close. * You cannot import a picture of an item (say your backyard) and just place plants on the picture. This is what I really wanted to be able to do. * The rendered pictures are far from "photo quality". I have tried bumping the quality to the highest level but all that seems to do is make the rendering take longer. This is probably my biggest complaint. I would be more willing to work through the other issues if I could end up with a high quality rendering of the finished landscape. If anybody knows of a web site with tips or a forum that discusses 3D Home Architect, please let me know. Here is a link to the Garden Gate review: Garden Gate's Landscape Software Comparison - Brent

zep, you got off free and clear, not I, not the first time probably won't be the last. Oh well can't please them all. LOL and yes I do have resources to back it up. Help! My computer is slow! a highly regarded MVP posts about registry cleaner use. Mark Russinovich (Author of the "Bible", Windows Internals, co-founder of Winternals and Sysinternals, and since both companies were bought by Microsoft, now a senior Microsoft employee) "I haven't and never will implement a Registry cleaner since it's of little practical use on anything other than Win2K terminal servers and developing one that's both safe and effective requires a huge amount of application-specific knowledge. Will using Registry Cleaners speed-up my system and make it more reliable? It will have no effect on system speed. There is an excellent chance it will make your system less reliable." And the extremely well know Fred Langa Are software registry cleaners of any use? Fred Langa started with a standard PC, imaged it, and ran 10 registry cleaners. He ran each three times on an image: Highest number of items that needed to be "fixed": 800 Lowest number of items found to be "fixed": 59 "Does not this suggest that what needs to be fixed is not at all certain? The other question it invites is it not possible that those generating a large number of entries are trying to sell snake oil? " And from Bill Castner MS MVP who works on many of the support forums. "Summary of Registry Cleaner Software: Do not bother with this. It it unlikely to help, it can cause harm. There are no end-user benefits from running registry cleaners. Unnecessary entries in the registry do no harm. This should not be a regular maintenance chore. It most certainly if done should not be automated. I hold to the singular distinction I made in the beginning: there are times that a fast registry editor with search is needed to fix a single issue under Expert hands. There is no justification for the regular use of automated registry cleaning tools; and as the results above show, they are of dubious merit as the "fix" for even one-off problems that need solving." Bill Castner MS-MVP, Aumha VSOP & Moderator I could certainly go on for quite some time quoting from each of the support forums, but I won't bother. As DA so wisely stated "The problem is here at the forum we have members of various levels of inexperience who at times overly rely on a member's suggestion or from readings elsewhere." That is precisely why at help forums you MUST be extremely cautious what is suggested, and every support forum I work on goes by the statement that Bill Castner made above. If someone knowingly choses to use such a program they take that risk upon them selves which is fine if they are knowingly entering into it and know the risks involved.

Might try booting up in safe mode then running your Avast. To get into safe mode, hold down the F8 key while it starts up.. it will beep a lot but eventually show you the start menu. Then just use your arrow keys and choose Start in Safe mode & press enter. It will ask you again which opperating system to start... choose Windows, which is probably the only choice.

Each one has more options. I'd visit the website and you'll find (somewhere on there) a list that kind of runs down the products and does comparisons. They get pretty detailed on the cabinet area on that list if I remember right. Frankly...I have to say, I'd just puchase the $500 one and start there...but that's because I bought the cheap one and felt I'd wasted money on it after I learned it wouldn't do what I needed. I also saved a great deal of money by using it (I didn't need to have several plans drawn up...we used mine). It was worth the cost to save that money in the long run. One thing I did like was that it was pretty easy to use (both versions). I purchased another home design program for around $100 and was sorry I had done so. It was hard to use and didn't do much at all (I don't remember the name and it's not on this computer sorry). OH I just remembered...I saw the BH&G program at Costco last visit. You might check there. I have no idea what the charge was, but it's normally cheaper....