Right. ON my Windows Me system I have recently (while offline) been prompted to connect to the net at starnge times. These are examples: -Starting Windows Meida PLayer (Just before it appears) -Going to Device Manager in System Properties. This never used to happen as far as i can remember - any ideas? Problem 2 - My machine is a 1500Mhz Athlon XP with 256MB RAM 40 GB Hard disk. After playing a few games on a Playstation emulator the other day (bleem!) Windows took AGES to do ANYHTING (over 10 seconds to bring up start menu) -i looked at my system resources in systrem properties and it read "7% - very low - see below" and "below" it just said that my system was low on resources - ive never seen this number below 60% on any system apart from this - whats the cause? Thanks Alex

Device manager trying to dial out is a problem I have encountered a number of times before. If you use a personal firewall (and you should - there are many free ones like Tiny Personal Firewall or Zone Alarm) you will get the message 'Windows Catalog Registration' from your computer wants to connect to 207.46.197.113, port 80 when you select device manager. The program responsible is c:\windows\system\sucatreg.exe It has to do with driver signing within Windows. Have a look at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q232/8/93.ASP and http://www.microsoft.com/HWDEV/desinit/digitsign.htm To fix it, go to Control Panel, double-click Internet Options, go to Tab labeled Advanced, scroll down the list to the heading of Security, and Uncheck the box "Check for publisher’s certificate revocation". Click OK. Problem 2 - System resources is a limited and small area of memory used by Windows to store various components every time you use a program, e.g. buttons, boxes, menus etc. When you close the program not all the system resource memory may be released and as your work builds up during the day you may run out of resources, or if you open a lot of programs together the same thing may happen (by the way Norton System Doctor hogs these resources if it is running, so shut it down first). The best cure is to reboot occasionally during the day. I make it a habit (a tedious but necessary one) to reboot whenever a game has been played on any of the PCs for which I am responsible because they can cause havoc with system resources and to reboot whenever strange things start happening, like delays opening things, etc. Regards, Trev