Thanks to a bad-ass Backdoor Trojan infection, my laptop's been dead for nearly a week. The first I knew about it was when I came back to it after a short break and found that it was randomly and independently opening, moving and deleting files and folders. The mouse-pointer was whizzing about as if controlled by an invisible hand. The only way to stop the process was to pull the mains power and remove the battery.
A recommended and reputable Trojan-remover found the offending crap and dealt with it, but there's been a lot of collateral damage - the boot-sector is trashed and the registry is shredded. I have copies of most of my apps and data on the USB HDD, so losses will be minimal, but reinstalling and configuring all that software will take ages. The hardware's in the repair-shop refusing to allow a clean OS installation.
Luckily I have a kind neighbour who's been generous enough to give me access to his lappy so that I can get online now and again. Thanks, Graham, you're a star!
Sadly I've no access to my email yet, so if you've been expecting a reply from me, please be patient.
THE SMALL(ish) PRINT... (updated 23/07/2016)
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Get a Mac. I did and left Bills rubbish operating system behind.
A Mac would be a good option except for compatability issues with much of the astro software that I've paid for, Martin.
That said, would a Mac have been any less prone to the Trojan infection?
Another nod for a Mac, ive had this iMac since April 2008, downloaded Kaspersky virus checker just to see if it find anything and well it didn't. first time I tested it.
Most viruses and Trojan are programmed to attack windows machine due to the fact that windows is the biggest market.
BTW you can now duel boot an Apple computer to run windows for your astro software.
I don't even have a virus checker on my Mac. There is 12 viruses or something for them and I have all the updates so have not bothered yet.