Hi Per,

I find it easier to just delete cookies myself. Unless there's another place they get hidden that I don't know about, they're right there under "Documents and Settings", in the folder "{your user name}", in the sub folder named "Cookies."

Then again, from Internet Explorer it's even easier to just pull down the menus "Tools" -> "Internet Options ..." which opens a dialog box. Under the "General" tab there is a button labeled "Delete Cookies."

What I would like is a utility that goes into the registry and cleans up all of those superflous entries that are no longer needed. I know they make such utilities. It's just that none of them that I've tried seem to do any good.

The fact is that once Bill Gates decides that everyone needs to buy his newest operating system, your old versions of Windows will start to slow down. While I haven't employed scientific methodology to demonstrate this empirically, I've observed the phenomonon enough times now to have noticed its uncanny correlation with "Windows Automatic Updates."

Unfortunately, some of the software I use is only available for Windows or Mac. In particular I am thinking of the software that runs my LPKF circuit board mill. I also have a very expensive electronic design package that requires Windows (albeit, and ironically, only because I don't want to cough up thousands of dollars for an upgrade).

Nonetheless I have already decided that when I am next forced to upgrade to any post-XP version of Windows, I will be switching to Linux instead. I've already made my shop PC a dedicated use machine, to run my CNC. It's still running Windows 95 and doing just fine. If LPKF doesn't offer a Linux version of their software, I will do the same with my lab PC, making it dedicated to my LPKF (and LabView I suppose, even though I haven't used LabView in years). It's still running Windows NT Pro, and doing just fine. And I can certainly set up one computer for nothing but electronics design work. What I won't do is buy another version of Windows.

I can not prove it, nor do I care to try, but I absolutely believe that Microsoft sabotages the operating efficiency of it older operating systems via the "Automatic Update" feature. Perhaps it's by design, or perhaps it's just fortuitous (for them) coincidence. I know that once upon a time U.S. car manufacturers designed their cars to last no longer than the average time it took the average person to buy a newer model. While this had no effect on those people who bought a new car every two or three years, it did start to impact everyone else. It became a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy by forcing others to buy another car sooner, shortening the average time to purchase, which shortened the designed lifetime of the new cars, ..., and a vicious cycle was born. Then came the Japanese and, ..., well, you get the picture. My point is that such a practice is not unprecedented.

Does Microsoft do this on purpose? I don't know or care. I believe they do it and that's all that matters to me.

Joe