layusn1

OK, looking at the moderators advice...don't use keygens/cracks/pirated programs. I don't recall doing any of those. I will check the links he provided and see if that is helpful. I do question though, and just for the sake of wondering...if virtumonde has been around that long...why didn't it cause these problems with XP...this is not a bash Vista question, this is a I want to understand the innards of Vista that would make it crash with a trojan that may or may not have caused this many issues with previous operating systems.

Also...just telling me that shutting down processes is about the worst debugging attempt possible doesn't really help. I am working within the limits of my knowledge and what my research has provided up to this point. Seems most people respond with common causes for Vista explorer crashes is programs that you have installed. I figure kill the process and you kill whatever any program that wasn't running in safe mode and thus MAYBE find the source...it was an attempt, maybe a "noob" attempt, but an attempt none the less.

I really didn't intend for this post to turn into a flaming/mudslinging/pissing anyone off thread...I am just really frustrated here and don't understand how if I have done nothing different than what I used to do with XP I am having this many issues...I figure that is a reasonable try to understand the inner workings of this OS type question. Perhaps my frustration caused me to phrase some things in a less than ideal manner...again, I apologize.

I am trying to avoid a rebuild because I am away from all of my software and on a laptop. I won't have access to my other software...Office, etc. for some time (months)...unless I download something with a keygen...lol...and apparently that would be a bad idea (legalities aside) and just put me right back in the same situation. Again, I am sorry for any ruffled feathers and really do appreciate any advice/suggestions and would really like to understand Vista if it is going to work well. If I am forced to rebuild, after I get the OS installed and all of the updates taken care of, what would you suggest for creating an image of the disk? I have a 120gb drive that came with the laptop and an extra 120gb hard drive that I could mount a clean image to so that way if this happens again I have a good backup.

Sticking with an OS that I am comfortable with/know will not help me learn/grow...that is the main reason I haven't just gone back to XP yet. I was thinking about rebuilding it with Ubuntu as the host OS and running Vista in a VMware image because that way I can learn the OS and if something goes wrong I would only have to delete the VMware image and reload a good copy...quick, clean and simple. Sorry for the long response as well, I just want everyone to understand where I am coming from and that I am really not a bad guy that just wants to flame Vista.