thanks man! that helped out a great deal. the only one i didn't get worked out is for the "network controller" and since everything seems to be going all right, i'm not even sure what exactly it would do :S oh and thanks for the little side note...you know stuff like that is why i'm a green-horn and you know what you're doing

thanks for the help and if you have a minute i'd take any available input on my loose-end. also, i have the "AVG" free edition and spybot search and destroy tea timer always going, is there any other anti-spyware/protection of any kind you might recommend? thanks again-
donovan
