Stayed up late upgrading the darn operating system on my Sony laptop to keep it from crashing regularly. Crashes just as regularly now and to top it off - it refuses to shut off. Have to pull the plug on it and then put up with the disk check when it start back up. At least the newer version of Windows don't tell you that "To avoid seeing this message, always shut down Windows from the Start menu...." I did, and I still see the message - what's with that? Doesn't matter. This SONY/Microsoft combination just isn't working. It's not going to work. Time to pull out the Linux CD. One less Windows box to fight with.