There are 3 management ills released by this change: 1. Apparently, a person unqualified for IT work made the decision to go with the lower cost application. That sounds very much like purchasing making a co-called cost reduction so they can put this on their list of accomplishments. A new, very important, untried application was not tried out before unleashing it system wide. A dummy account should have been created in the "sandbox" region of the server and the application tried there for a period of time. Many of the ills you mentioned should have shown up in the sandbox version and would have been contained. This would have given the system operators a chance either correct the software or reject it. Somehow, the system's virus checker was disabled or uninstalled. The SANDBOX: Many years ago, makers of large servers included a "sandbox" in their operating system. This is a feature that carves off a section of memory, and isolates it from the remainder of the computer. When accessed from outside the installation, it appears like a complete system. Its a place to experiment and give neophytes a place to roam. Any damage done is confined to the sandbox. Also, the system operators can use the sandbox to test to see if their corporate system is under attack by intruders, by lowering the protection on the sandbox and then watching for what comes in.

I think they are not English speakers and use a translation app that works like a thesaurus, so the words are close but not quite right.

Maddielee, the spammer doesn't take over. A thread is resurrected with a vague post like "I have something like that, it's good" or whatever vague meaningless statement. Then the spammer comes back and edits the post to add a spam link. The limit to edit posts is one week. It takes at least two flags to make spam disappear. Spam links might be links to real companies who have chosen disreputable agents to do their advertising, but a lot more seem to be from Eastern European counties linking to malicious websites, trying to get your info to sell, selling inferior and mis-advertised products, and other bad stuff. My objections are 1) identifying the bad guys, 2) keeping the site clean so you can trust a link from a known member, 3) (not that I have a great love for Houzz or anything) it cheapens their site and turns away people who come here for real info and have to wade through lots of junk. Lucille, I concentrate on posts made by someone who just registered. I have never had a problem with someone recommending a service or product, unless they own the company. If someone says "Pro" I check the phone number and address by Google. Usually the bad guys have made up locations with non-existent towns and mismatched phone numbers, zip codes and the like. I once did have a real location, and auto body shop for someone claiming to be a KD business. The vague comments now seem to be more relevant somehow, and some are longer than they used to be. The ones I am watching, I either post 'following' or I 'like' the post. Both methods let me find the post days later to check for the spam edit. I try my best to delete my 'following' posts and my requests for flags as soon as the offense is removed.

Yes to removing the shutters. Shutters should "shut" or they don't belong on a house. What a decision to make. I would drive around looking for victorians of similar age to look for inspiration. Paint stores will have bookets with exterior examples.