I just used the express installation. After it looked my computer over, it didn't install anything. I guess all the updates, patches, and fixes were current to begin with.

It is nice to be able to come into my computer room after several days, jiggle the mouse, and not having to see some half-butted error message and/or a total loss of keyboard functions. It is ready and waiting to go!

W2K Prof in this machine has not crashed yet. I am very impressed! All my programs work, and all the drivers work. I can multi-task up the butt, and W2K Prof just seems to ask for more to do. Jeeze, at one time I had 5 things running on each monitor, and it still ran smooth as silk.

As for the security issue, I can well believe that if the security services really want to access your hard disc remotely while you're online, then they have the means to do it. They can also listen in to your 'phone conversations and track your whereabouts using the signal from your mobile 'phone, too. I guess you have to accept that the right to privacy can be restricted to a certain extent in the name of public safety. But there have to be limits on it, and most of my security paranoia is not to do with the government 'listening in', but over the possibility that private individuals or organisations might be able to do it.

At home my only significant Internet use is to download e-mail messages (99% of web use I do from work). I keep the modem physically unplugged from the 'phone line at all times except when connecting. The reason I started doing this is that I once had a modem card zapped by lightning while it was left plugged in, and resented having to spend £50 to replace it. But I think it also makes good security sense to keep it unplugged, too. If a virus (e.g. MTX or some variants of Magistr), worm or Trojan contains code instructing the machine to connect, either to pass data out of download more malicious code in, then this code cannot be executed if the modem is unplugged.

I'm convinced that this precaution together with a firewall (Zone Alarm in my case) will keep all but determined professionals out of my PC. I'm online for such short periods of time that if anyone really did want to get a significant volume of data out of it, they would have to physically break into my flat and do it that way. Even then, they'd still have to defeat the W2K username security and file encryption, which I imagine the authorities could do, but most other people would have serious trouble.

I installed it from the 124mb complete download, not the version which executes a shell program that then downloads the required updated files. So far, Zone Alarm hasn't reported any unusual executables or DLLs trying to access the Internet, and the connection icon on the taskbar hasn't shown any traffic going backwards and forwards when there shouldn't be.

One welcome feature that SP3 does introduce is a facility which allows you to totally erase Outlook Express and/or Internet Explorer. Presumably this is an implementation of the Supreme Court ruling.