[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by Callum: While this may be true, I have heard from our school systems manager that computers need to have 'rest periods'... or something like that [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Yes. A normal pc purchased from a store front, running Win2K is desinged to run 24x7. The night IT crew are the ones who perform routine maintenance, updates etc. When I'm displaced, as currently, and not physically on the internal LAN, I do my routine maintenance once a week. Usually the same day that I maintain my vehicle. It gets all of the other non-critical Win2K updates, 'Dell' specific updates, drivers, and Norton updates. From there it gets spyware checked, then adware checked, then a full disk clean-up, then into scan disc, de-frag, and then shut-down for about 4 hours.
Sure, there are automated ways to do this, but I prefer to do an occasional visual check. Also, some of these need user interaction, and by doing when I'm about allows it to be completed in a timely manner.
For the home user, I feel that Harkoliar is on a good route, especially experiencing 'brown outs' in the AM. Yes the daily routine of power down power up takes a negligible toll on system life, it would be preffered to the drastic effects of a loss of power on a routine basis. If money were the not an issue, maintaing the power up/energy saving mode with an uninterruptable power supply would be the best route.