Cathy, Your statement "She'll have to buy Windows" threw me somewhat. I'm assuming you aren't talking about building a computer from the ground up and that your friend is a "newbie" getting her first computer. In this case I'd highly recommend that she buy a factory refurbished computer for three reasons: First, a factory refurbished computer can be thought of as one that has had a defective part repaired/replaced and has been inspected individually by a factory technician. In most cases, it's in better condition than the average "off the shelf" model. I have personally bought six (4 Compaqs and 2 HPs) refurbished computers and haven't had a problem with any of them. Second is cost. By shopping around, a factory refurbished computer can be had for a fraction of the retail price. Example: CompUSA, http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=280684, has a Compaq Presario 5000US, AMD Duron 750MHz, 64 MB SDRAM, 30 GB Hard Drive, 40x CDROM, and Windows Millennium for $369.99 ($699.99 Retail). And third, it doesn't matter what she gets as a first computer. As she becomes more computer literate and further defines what she wants to accomplish with it, she'll find that what she initially bought doesn't fit the bill anyway. (Justifies reason one and two.) The software list you have is good keeping in mind, "if she doesn't need it, don't 'clog' up the system by installing it." An example is a download manager... unless you're a "power" downloader (games, MP3, etc.), you don't need it. Windows can handle the occasional download. Depending on the operating system, you may find you don't need additional software. Millennium and XP both have zipping/unzipping functions and an excellent graphics viewer. As a minimum, go with the anti-virus and firewall protection. I would get Internet Explorer 6 for the added security features (includes OE6 with new security features) from Windows Update. I hope this has provided some help. Good luck. :-) Sven Swanson, Sr. Hi I'm about to set up a computer for a friend and since she's on a (very) tight budget I suggested that she should spend her money on the best hardware she can afford, then run her computer on freeware for now. She can always buy better software later, right? I've drawn up a list as follows: Firewall: Zone Alarm Antivirus: InnoculateIT or AVG Download Manager: Download Express System Protection: SystemSafe Gold Compression Utility: PowerZip Graphics Viewer: InfranView Browser: Internet Explorer Uninstaller: Windows' Add/Remove Mail Client: Outlook Express News Reader: Outlook Express PDF Reader: Acrobat Reader What do people here think? Please feel free to add to/ modify/critisize this list or add suggestions for the above or other catagories. Or tell me if you think this whole thing is a bad idea. She'll have to buy Windows of course though I did think of using Linux since I have a copy of Corel Linux from a cover disk, except I have no experience with this OS. Thanks. Cathy _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com PCSOFT maintains many useful files for download visit our download web page at: http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml