Bob - Good Grief is right. But it's probably not as bad as it sounds. One of the problems is that before I found this forum a year ago (and had some sense of saving files to the appropriate place), not only did my husband and I just save files (with no regard to where they were being placed) - we also had 2 different computer guys help at various times - and I've discovered that one of them took it upon himself to set up some folders and put items there (he set up a Lynn's documents) when he transferred data from one computer to another. Now I can see why he set up my own folder (since my husband and I shared a computer in those days) - but he never told me he was doing that- so lo and behold - I have an entire Lynn's documents folder that I never use but contains some of my older files. yeah - I guess it's a lot to sort. Personally, your method makes sense to me - just set up folders in the C drive for the categories I'm interested in. I'm now the only one on my computer - so I don't think I need a "my documents" folder (and certainly not a separate "Lynn's documents" folder). I am so glad to have found this forum and decided to get mastery and comprehension of my computer. Having professionals set things up - but not bother telling you what and why they did things - just complicates everything. And the pictures are also a mess bc. this helpful computer guy put picasa on my pc - which grabbed every picture - so that many pictures appear in picasa and elsewhere. It's the picture finding and organizing that seems the most daunting. Videos and music I've done myself in the past year - no one else has touched it but me. Word files are manageable too. BP - my question about the Tivo files is that I want to sit in my living room, have Tivo search my computer to see what's on it. That's what I'm thinking has to be in the Tivo desktop program. When I'm at my computer, I think I can find the videos anywhere - I'm just thinking that no matter where they came from (Tivo desktop, hulu, my camcorder, edited in Videoredo), that I might somehow have to move them all to My Tivo Recordings folder in order to access it using the Tivo and watching tv. Do I have that right? Jemdandy - that's one interesting way to approach the 2 drives - one for programs and one for data files. But then I'd be backing up data files to yet another place. I have a 500GB hard drive and am thinking of adding a second 1TB hard drive. So both drives have lots of room. Except for video files, I would think my c drive could easily handle my programs and data files (music, documents and pictures) - and the software and those files could be on the c drive and backed up to the second internal drive. Is there a reason - in terms of improved performance, etc - to use the c drive only for software? Does that add an extra step if I want to use one of my software programs (say photo editing) and have to go to the other drive to get the actual photos to work on? Or is it just as quick to run a program on one drive and get the data from the other? [Okay - good grief, it is]. Thanks everyone. Lynn.

Bree look on the side panel or top of the case and there should be a sticker there telling you Windows XP is inside and there should be a product key listed too. Was this a new computer? Was it local built? Go to my link below and download the small SIW program. It does not need to be installed, just double click on the exe file and it will run. This will tell you so much about your computer it is amazing. On the first screen click the second choice down on the left side - Operating system. In the new window you will see it tells you if your is XP Pro or Home and if it is full retail or OEM - I suspect OEM but that is fine. This is the top line on my computer, yours would look similar and hopefully say the service pack 2 is installed. Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 Look further down the right window and record the Product key (not the serial number as that is not so important) for future reference (this is the key that should be on the sticker somewhere on the outside of your case. I would suggest confronting the vendor but at this stage we do not know what you purchased or what you paid Here is a link that might be useful: Gregory Topala's SIW program

I think we have been jumping back and forth between specifics of my particular post and questions posted in general. I don't have enough experience in this computer forum to really add anything to any general discussion beyond my own personal, very minor experiences, so I will go back to the specifics of my post and my own situation. In the past, when I was a Windows PC user, I was an intermittent visitor to a number of computer forums, not this one very often, because of low traffic here, but all the forums had very friendly people who were generous with their time and expertise and seemed happy to help. Since switching to an Apple computer, I have barely stepped foot in a computer forum. I have not needed to. My laptop just works 90% of the time and when it doesn't, I have a 3 yr tech support policy in place. Something I've had with every computer I've ever had since I first started getting on the computer in 1995. It has been a big relief, because maintaining a computer and straightening out technical problems even with help was a very frustrating task that I never enjoyed. It always felt like a 'big black hole' of wasted time when some issue would present itself. Even with an 'expert' to help figure it out, you'd never know how many hours you'd have to take away from whatever task you were trying to do, to stop and figure out why the computer wasn't responding right, 'again'. Or how many days your computer would not be working. Even with a tech support policy, I might call and get the wrong information and no fix with two techs, and have to call back again and then a third tech might know just what the problem was and fixed it in about 10 minutes. So, even though I was less technically literate, it seemed like even among the technically literate, there were a lot of people who seemed as confused as I was. I always tried to understand what I needed to know. Always tried to find out what I could do using the computer that would be preventative and avoid problems. It didn’t seem to matter, tech problems always seemed to present themselves regardless. So again, I can’t even express how relieved I’ve been not to have that experience with my computer any more. My husband has a windows based computer with Vista on it and I don’t even want to touch it. Which brings me to my thread that seems to have triggered this discussion. I wasn’t even asking for help with a problem with my computer. I had already been working with my own situation for 3 days and taken steps to resolve it not only with GW but with my own Apple tech support. I was not satisfied with the responses or information that I was getting from either about whether this ‘downloaded file’ was a problem or not. That was why I posted here. And from the information that ravencajun offered, it would seem that I had reason to remain concerned about the ‘possibility’ that it could be a problem and one I wanted to take steps to avoid in the future. Even if the file that was downloaded onto my computer was not a problem, it might have been. So, what was it about my thread that has caused a negative response? What did I do or say that was wrong? I’m still here defending my thread, why? Have I even done any of the things that some of you are expressing you have a problem with? I was very appreciative for the help ravencajun gave me and I even tried to smooth over my initial response to Mike, even though I still think he was wrong in both content and attitude in his response to me, I was more than willing to give him a break and overlook it. At this point, I am at a loss to understand how what seemed like a simple question has resulted in my feeling like I have to defend myself for asking it and now defending all people who come to forums and ask questions. That doesn't seem right to me.

'You should maybe slow down in continuing to give advice about things you don't seem to know much about.' Excuse me? Maybe you should stop telling people not to post on the internet, especially when you seem to be grossly uninformed on the nature of infections and what hackers' intents are in trying to get onto computers. 'The likelihood of sustaining a credit card loss, inconvenience, or identity theft solely from online financial and banking activity from home is very, very, very low. ' Who said anything about 'solely from online financial/banking activity?' You. Nevertheless, our business is big cybercriminal business. That aside, viruses and hackers are most definitely after credit card information and such. What else do you think they are after? Just like to follow us around to see what we are up to? There is an entire industry and force of non-profit vigilantes focused on combating hackers and malware. Cyber criminals are after our personal information. It's a fact, not an infrequent occurrence or minor nuisance. It is big business. Read up before you pose as an authority. 'From what I've read, the risks that do exist have almost nothing to do with custom apps that many use or vulnerabilities in browser software exploited by bad guys in other ways and for other purposes.' What does this even mean? Custom apps? We are talking about updating Windows. I mentioned there are security issues around not keeping Windows updated - rather than it simply being a marketing ploy encouraging people to upgrade. If you are doing transactions online, it is prudent to keep your software updated. You can also lose personal photos and files to ransom ware these days if you don't back them up. Browser vulnerabilities are not an issue? Really?? Please, do let companies like Google, Norton, ESET, Bleeping Computer and all the other companies know that it's not an issue. They are wasting an enormous amount of time, money and other resources combating cybercriminals. Good grief. I don't even understand what your argument is. I'm not sure you do either.