Two comments on the Windows OS: 1) Windows 98/ME do not handle huge memory requests well. This is noticable with many progamms that are using temporarily AND frequently huge amounts of memory. In some cases the programs are the ones that do not clean up the memory as they should, but rather often the memory manager of Win98 can be blamed for misbehaving. This is especially true when the system is extensivly swapping, cause of lack of real memory. 2.)To make it short: In always any case the problems disapear if Windows 2000 Pro is installed. IMHO this comes from two reasons. First the memory manager is much more stable under heavy system loads AND the NTFS file system used under NT/Win2000 is much more robust as the FAT32 system used by Windows 98/ME. Thus it survives crashes of programms by far better. 3.) Always check your filesystem after a crash (!) AND clean up temporary files. If you do not - you'll make any problem worse than it already is. NEVER BOOT OR WORK FROM AN UNCHECKED FILE SYSTEM AFTER A CRASH - NEVER EVER !. 3.) The recomendations from Wizzard and hauksdottir are realy good --> because saving over the same file almost ever results in a loss of the old AND the new file, if something goes wrong. 4.) I am not a "Microsoft Man" - and they do not sponsor me in any way (Quite the opposite: If I have the choice I go for UNIX )