Thanks for the tips. We tended to leave that laptop on because it was a pain to get the wifi started. The new one will definitely be turned off at night.

It is important to me to have my graphics program on there, and we are considering Adobe maybe ...but if I can weasel my Paint shop pro back on there (don't tell on me), that will be enough for me. The laptop is really for hubby...and since he is so helpful and is supporting us 100% now that I am not working... who am I to say, no? We take it on vacation... and that is when I use it most. Sometimes in the night I use it if I can't sleep and don't want to brave the stairs at 2am. Going up and down really then wakes me up and I have wasted a sleep time.

We did the F12 thing...nada. My son thinks the HD is totally dead. He said he'll try to resurrect it. We'll take it to him sometime after Xmas so he can work on it at his convenience. His job is releasing a new software product and he is totally stressed and tired with the moving into the new house and all on top of that. He is the bug tester...and feels it is really a big responsibility to catch ALL the bugs!

So hubby is sharing the main machine downstairs where I typically work. He insists on using HIS side, so there is alot of logging off here etc. I always just used his side on the laptop, but he won't do that here. So logging off back and forth is a pain of sorts. He is going to put our finances on this machine from the backup... since this one has the software on it. That way we can move to the new laptop with a flash drive. He made spread sheets showing our retirement situation and it is pretty nifty. It is easy then to see trends and move things etc. That way we don't lose much by mistake. So today he will be starting that back moving and I won't be online as much as before.