From: "Geo." 

I do turn them off, however upon first login there are lots of them.
Windows update, security center, backup and restore, defender, it seemed
like they just wouldn't leave me alone.

As for my defaults being silly. Is it not silly to believe that one size
fits all? I was suggesting 3 choices, one geared to newbies, one geared to
average users, one geared to experts.

Geo.

"Rich"  wrote in message news:45a957ca{at}w3.nls.net...
   The notifications to which you refer are not questions which is why they
display quickly then disappear.  I see few of these and could turn those
off if they bothered me.  If they bother you turn them off.  I'm still
surprised you see many.  How many to a barrage?

   Your preferences have not become standard.  As for the firewall default
change in SP2 I would turn it on before SP2 and am happy it is on by
default.  It can be a problem though because some common third party
products would screw up when the firewall was on.  I had several friends
that lost all network access because mcafee or norton would turn on their
firewalls even if previously disabled and whatever they do the result was
no network access not just two firewalls.  Maybe these products have fixed
this by now but it would have been an even more serious problem when
Windows XP was first released.

   That's besides the point.  Most of your preferences are fine for you
which is why they are options but the suggestion they be default is silly.
You have repeated this for years and it is still silly.

Rich

  "Geo."  wrote in message
news:45a94229{at}w3.nls.net...
  I'm referring to the barrage of those help bubbles that keep popping up
from
  the bottom of the screen and all the other questions the damn thing asks
  when you first login and start clicking around.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5