the problem is that you don't have any restrictions on file access. even worse, is that you can't have them with windows ME (unless you get some sort of goofy 3rd party prog). You'll need some form of NT, either NT, win2k or XP. And then you have to format/convert your drive with NTFS. Your right windows ME sucks major donkey balls, in my opinion it's actually worse than 98SE As far as security goes, there's not mutch you can really do short of upgrading to 2000 or XP. If you went all out and got linux you'd be secure, but the desktop environment might not be as mutch fun