HardcoreGK

-WinXP vs Win2k- WinXP is the best looking OS I have ever seen. That's where the love affair ends folks. The driver issues are being fixed but my Lite-On DVD player hasn't worked properly since I installed WinXP. It works well under Linux, leading me to believe it's something to do with the Win OS. I am going back to Win2k Advanced Server next week. -Win2k vs Linux- Linux is very stable. I love the absence of all the error messages when I'm using Windows. I haven't gotten into too much gaming with Linux but I have seen a serious lack of titles released specifically for the OS. I'm sure there are progs out there that create a virtual Win environment but that just lowers the system to the ranks of Apple and their crappy VirtualPC prog. For gaming, I choose Win2k. Hands down.

I'm just stating the story as I remember it. If I made an error, I made an error. I rest my case.. try decaf.

You're dead on about the Wednesday updates... but they were every 14 days, not every week. I'm speaking of the retail version so if you had something better, obviously your story will be different. Let me assure you the problem was on their side. Even after I contracted the virus, I attempted to update the definitions to no avail. The program said I had the latest version. Norton updated their protection the following day but it was "a day late and a dollar short" as far as I'm concerned. Having over 400 files infected is a huge turn-off for any Anti-Virus program. No real harm done though. I switched to PC-Cillin2k, which cleared it right up, disabled the share from the culprit who was DL'ing pr0n, and haven't had a problem with anything since. My version of PC-Cillin won't run with WinXP so I had to switch to McAfee VirusScan 6.0 Pro. Overall, I'd still take PC-Cillin over the other 2. Anyone got a hook up on the 2k2 version? ;-) P.S. Everyone needs to stop being so personal with everything and being so quick to blame. Unless you're Mr Norton himself, I think you need to kick back a bit.

I had a problem with Norton 2001 when Nimda was out. They hadn't updated their AV definitions until the 2nd week the virus was out. Not only did it infect my computer (thanks to an idiot on my network) but it would not clean it. It had no problems sending files to quarentine (same ones every boot, even after I disabled the shares) but would neither delete nor clean the files. The one saving grace Norton has is how easy it is to use. The GUI is very clean and straight-forward. I installed PC-Cillin 2000 which not only detected the virus immediately but deleted them the first time. I never heard from Nimda again. It has nowhere near the amount of frills as the other AV software packages but 1) it gets the job done, 2) doesn't take up much by way of resources, and 3) came free with my mobo. In upgrading to WinXp, I thought I'd install McAfee 6 Pro w/ the built-in firewall. The firewall is a pain in the butt to configure. I put some of my progs (like MSN) on the allow list and every time it loads, I have to click 2 windows each program for the firewall to allow it to access the outside. Also, after a file transfer, its scanner hogs resources and won't give them back until you open their screen and hit ok. I do like the QuickClean Lite feature even though I really don't use it much.

Not challenging anyone's technological knowledge or anything like that but in reading the thread, I have to raise this question: Have you tested all the basics? Did you... - Changed the NIC to see if it's a hardware problem? - Changed routers/modems, wiring media, etc? - Did you manually config the conn with a different IP?

Does "Machine2" have an OS already installed or would you be performing a network boot? If there's already an OS, you can just share the CD-ROM on Machine1 and access the drive from Machine2. Your other possibility is to just transfer the i386 folder to the HDD on M1, share it on the network, and access it from M2. If there's no OS on the first machine, it would be a lot simpler to hit the local Best Buy and pick up a CD-ROM than it would to set up a network boot for a system with just a floppy. Hope this helped.