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 - So far so good...One could argue that Microsoft should be ashamed to sell a product like this which is only designed to protect you from the very troublesome issues of viruses, spyware and internet attack brought on by flaws in the Microsoft operating systems. Of course, they might argue that since they know their own flaws better, they can do a better job of protecting you. I can't tell long-term how this product will hold up, but it did install on my XP machine with no problems (other than requiring me to uninstall Adaware). It seems to do what it is supposed to do - protect me without bothering me. It has some nice features - it makes backing up look easy and seems to download updates without needing to go through a process, like Adaware or Spybot. I hope it works out. I like the idea of one-stop shopping for computer protection and with as little interference as possible. This seems to do the job. Edited on August 28. I have taken this product off my computer. I ended up getting a major Trojan Horse attack and the little green light stayed on the whole time, telling me my system was operating perfectly. Meanwhile I was in big trouble. This product did not detect anything! If it wasn't for Norton Antivirus I'd have been dead. Rating: - Very goodNorton is overpriced. Macafee slows my computer to a crawl. This software integrates suprisingly well with Windows. I've always been wary of MS products, but I was stunned by the ease of use. Most firewalls I've had are incredibly annoying with their security pop-ups. (mcaffee especially) This program just sits in the background unnoticed. Sometimes I wonder if it's on, but it's running. That's what they should be doing, right? It's $30 cheaper than the competition too. All in all, I think I made a very good choice. Rating:  - Nice for Gradama but not for MeIt took FOUR DAYS to do a virus scan (yes, I do have 800gb of storage). And it did find a Trojan! Thank goodness. But, it would not tell me which file it was in. No way to get the filename. I bought it for backup (since they took away the fair but functional backup that came with XP). There is no treeview checklist for backup, no way to exclude or include entire directories. Instead you get to say things like "Financial Files". I have files named .XYZ what does it think those are? After I courrpted a few files I thought I would try out the restore function. "Enter Filename". Huh? I want to restore a whole subdirectory, and I dont recall the fargin filenames cuz the files are gone now. Again, no treeview checklist for restore. But you can view the list of all files sorted by name. Remember I have 800gb, that was a joy. This may be nice for grandma, but not for me. Give me back the old "free" backup that came with XP and I'm happy. Rating: - Windows One Care is all rightIt may not be fancy or the best on the market but it works well with the operating system and does not slow my computer down like other products. The periodic optimizing/backup feature is really nice. Rating:  - Microsoft's' Folly It was quite a struggle to go through my Excel assignment. And not because of its complexity. But because of the Microsoft Live OneCare anti-virus & firewall. While it was on, it would compromise collaboration features of Excel, besides bringing other havoc ! Only after a lot of hassle, like uninstalling the entire suit, I by chance run into the posting about apparent conflict of MS OneCare & Excel I did have same problems with using certain features of QuickBooks software, but Intuit is Microsoft main competitor and it might not have much incentive to make its anti-virus software run with it. However it's inconceivable that the Microsoft's own anti-virus suit would be so incompatible with Microsoft's flagship application - Excel ! The reason I've changed from MacAfee to One Care is for greater compatibility, but what did I got ? However that's nothing new about Microsoft' modus operandi, my Zune isn't compatible with Microsoft's own DDR Format either. It doesn't bring me joy to bash Microsoft, neither I am an Apple fanboy, but from what I am hearing from friends and family members who work at Microsoft, Microsoft is ruthless in criticizing its employees and automatically fire 10% of the bottom ranked employee, even if they do a satisfactory job. Apparently this "dog-eat-dog" corporate culture, in which employees are expected to work overtime, and often are brought to tears by blunt remarks of their stressed-out bosses, doesn't help produce interoperable, reasonably bug-free products, in a timely fashion. Perhaps adopting a more collegial, compassionate & less tense corporate culture would bring better results? Since employees who are treated with respect are much more likely to go an extra mile (like noticing & fixing bugs that they aren't responsible to notice & fix), than those who don't.
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