[bigshrimpin]

MAC - I'm not a fan of those utilities . . . I don't even have an anti-virus program installed on my PC's.

The best way to maintain your windows PC . . . hands down is Symantec Ghost and an external HD.

Once you have your PC setup the way you want . . . with all your programs, windows patches, tweaks etc. . . . make an image of the PC using ghost and store it on the external drive.

Once a week- Back up all your data files, MP3 collection, boat porn, bookmarks, etc. to the external drive.

Three months later when your windows OS gets jacked up by the lastest flavor of spyware/virus/browser hijack . . .

You'll have a good image of your PC . . . and a current back up copy of your data on the external drive.

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Depending on the number of programs you have installed on your PC . . . It should take about 5 - 10 mins to rebuild your PC using ghost (i.e. bring PC back to where it was when you imaged it)

All you have to do . . . boot from the PC using ghost, select image to disk, and the image you made 3 months ago will be copied to your drive (take about 10 minutes to rebuild a PC using ghost)

Then . . .

1. update the OS with current windows patches.
(make a new image if you like)

2. copy the back up data from the external drive onto your PC.