Running Windows 7, but added BACK Office XP (tweaked to run 32 bit on 64 bit system) - due to time constraints and work product deadline and unfamiliarity with Office 2007 on the new computers purchased after our home recently burned (earlier post). No problems with this for several days now. Suddenly, this morning, SECURITY CENTER will not let me boot up except in SAFE MODE, under threat that unless we go to SECURITY CENTER to fix our MS firewall settings that I won't be able to recover my files (even my startup "My Settings" won't open). We run Norton - full blast, because we have been phished before! It has Spam "recognition" filter, spyware, malware protection and, since Norton is free and recommended, supplied by our Cable ISP, Comcast, we choose to use Norton. It works, even if NOT running Comcast. It installed as an independent application. It also has "Identity Safe" for passwords and logons for every place you need to set one up. I am NOT going to put up with running two firewalls, and Microsoft's Firewall makes your Browsing session feel like a dog on a leash, and generates constant warnings, reminders, etc. We set up our security and know how to make sure we are protected. We turned off MS firewall because with our new router, our networking setup just wouldn't work at all unless we turned off the MS firewall! We'd pulled our hair out, trying to get Networking/ homegroup (and the heirarchy of ownership for every thing under the sun). Boy, whoever thought all the new constraints for homegrouping, must have been terribly interested in providing themselves "job security" as a problem solver/ technical developer / fixer, for eternity or longer! ha! ha! (Not insulting anyone!) We were finally allowed to Network as a homegroup, when we figured out that firewall with it's incoming / outgoing rules was protecting us from from our other users in our homegroup! Strange! When Networking and Homegroups are set up, and users identified, it seems that some perceptive I.T. person could figure out a way to allow the NETWORKED setup /homegroup to communicate to security center. All the MS components are like people sitting down to the same dinner table, but not speaking to each other. What's the point of making all the "centers" "standalone applications" so to speak? spammers and hackers, but from each other! use the same printer, let me get into the Terrabyte drives for "backup" DOCUMENTS pertinent to our legal case over custody of grandchildren (fighting the State - who won't get out of our business). We run NORTON firewall provided by Comcast ISP - and it is plenty active. As long as we used Windows firewall, configured every which way, we couldn't completely use our Networked printer, settings for homegroup ignored, and we just about gave up on Networking. Browsing with Windows Firewall on (even with the most OPEN, least intrusive settings) it was like being allowed to walk like a dog on a short leash. Couldn't quite reach the fire hydrant! Browsing was more an aggravation than a tool. Not everyone is a social browser, looking to see what's gong on in the "tweeter/tweaker" world, wasting time like 16 year olds are known to do. Seems lots of younger users are naive, and perhaps don't have anything else to do, and perhaps all the SAFETY / Security setup stuff is geared toward the crowd who trusts too easily, and has no personal money to lose, since their parents pay for the ISP and probably whatever they purchase online. The younger the user, the less likely that person has a "real life" to live, real demands on their time, and no bank account (or job) to worry about getting cleaned out. I do understand you all program the security setup for the dumbest and most naive of the users, but why not at least provide "graduated" security setups for users based on age and liklihood of inappropriate browsing. Say, provide one setup for a 47-yr old system owner/admin., another for a 14 yr old who goes to poorly managed sites to download free (but current) music, allowing all kind of gremlins to take up residence in the machine - nice idea? (This is a question, but sorry, it's turned into a RANT). What if someone is Browsing for Job Search Reasons, or finding Legal Code regarding a court case? The Browser MUST WORK and work smoothly, and be as unintrusive as possible, or your users migrate to FoxFire or Opera to avoid the hassle. To be blunt, if the experience isn't hassle -free a person who uses computers for communications and business, for work, etc, might as well go back to electric typewriters and fax machines. We simply found that Windows firewall was so intrusive as to make Browsing and Networking a miserable experience. So, we turned it off, since Norton is already running quite well. What's the problem, as long as we are responsibly running Norton to prevent on-line attacks, phishing, filtering spam, (it also cleans the registry, etc). Norton Firewall and Spyware/Ad & Malware secirity protection is on the job, when we are browsing and on-line. Today, SECURITY CENTER says we cannot BOOT UP except in SAFE MODE, due to an incomplete shutdown last night (likely it was not shutdown after a remote boot for updates to load). I didn't notice problem with shutdown - not SLEEP - shutdown. So, after running only Norton for weeks, we are suddenly receiving threats of actions which will destroy existing work products and prevent reclaiming my files unless MS SECURITY CENTER AND MS FIREWALL are ON and set properly. As we find Norton adequate protection, have had no problems with hackers, phishing, etc and NO THREATS from Microsoft for using this setup for some time now, why suddenly do we get the BIG NO-NO message from SECURITY CENTER? Says we MUST turn on security center & use WINDOWS FIREWALL. Professionally, I am recently retired - a Statistician / Product Quality Manager with ASQ Quality Engr. registration - a test that takes all day, with every book you can carry into the testing location. I've known PHD's in Mechanical engineering who have tried and failed to pass this world-wide test (given on the same day, everywhere in the world). I am also a trained auditor for ISO-9000 compliance, and what I love to do most is "failure analysis" for serial and parallel systems. Statistically, I specialized in benchmarking new products to develop property specs for all our yarn products (some 300-400 at the time I retired). It is also sometimes known as being a 6-sigma professional, though that usually implies more human interaction - cheerleading and forcing "floor employees" to work on a cost reduction or product improve-ment issue. (As far as using FIREWALLS - I was using MS Firewall plus NORTON The only time I've ever been hacked. As I checked out with my shopping cart on JC PENNEY SITE, the phisher (some company with 10-15 business names under one "street address" in Anaheim, CA). I was in the "finishing up" stage, adding my Visa or MasterCard when the page was smoothly "replicated perfectly" but I was no longer on JC Penney site (the JC PENNEY IT folks couldn't find where code had been inserted, so whatever it was, their site wasn't hijacked, it was replicated, and the event was triggered by entering the card #, Upon which they "took a snapshot" and replicated the page (checkout pages differ, and often, one moves on from the shopping cart and display of order to another screen, which might contain a total, a mailing/shipping/billing address, and one only needs to finish by entering your card # and hitting the confirm order button. Didn't notice at the time that the site url had changed, (said to expect my items to be shipped blah, blah,), and asked me to participate in a survey about the shopping experience on the website, and I was suddenly looking at a SURVEY (traps, every one). I fell for it, and thought I was still in Penney's site, since they offered me a $50 gift certificate for use on-line with Penney's to complete the survey. I didn't want to LOSE my order or repeat the whole process! I needed these things I'd ordered - I HAD entered my Visa or MasterCard. I hadn't hit enter to complete the transaction, but wanted to get back to the screen to confirm my order and ship date. Of course the "survey" was a phish to trap the screen when users entered any card # (other than JC Penney card #) and since I didn't want to lose my confirmation, I agreed to a free sample of some type of wrinkle cream, just to get out of the survey. Well, they got into my bank account, sent me several ORDERS of their wrinkle cream, (which I never opened). My bank account or credit card was hit for several hundred dollars (times how many oneline shoppers for JC PENNEY?) I found the PHishers website, but there was no place to cancel, no phone #, nothing in the site with which to stop the shipments. My Card Company reimbursed me for several hundred dollars (a $5.00 sample can often cost $35.00 for shipping and handling). I also reported the company and the street address (obtained from Calif. Better Business Bureau) to the FTC. MS Firewall didn't prevent this, and they don't prevent or filter the JUNK deleted as SPAM (Norton collects that data, and filters out that mail). I don't know if it works for MSN live, but it keeps the Comcast account clean of unwanted mail. Why are we forced to use MS FIREWALL ? It didn't care, until today, that it hadn't been used for quite a while. As far as I could tell, things shut down fine last night with my Dell Laptop, but my husband may have left his system on. Would this cause messages sent to other users on the network?

Hi, In order to troubleshoot the issue, please capture the “cannot BOOT UP except in SAFE MODE” window from Security Center and upload it here for research. Usually, the symptom may not be related to Security Center. This issue can occur by virus, incompatible driver or hardware. I suggest you download and install Microsoft Security Essentials. Upgrade the virus definition and run a complete scanning for a test. Thanks, Novak

Thanks, but too late! We copied the "gobbledygook" file to flash drive and stuck it in my husband's "bells and whistles" self built one, and he got it to read in plain English. When I was working in XP my default font (not English and couldn't change it) was Latin! and some other one (looked like Sanskrit or Thai, but cannot recall exactly what name of language was - not common or I'd recall). Opened fine in his machine. Copied it from his MS Word 7, back to my flash drive, and stuck it in my machine (by now, I'd reloaded and resigned myself to making myself re-learn WORD ms7, but am on a "deadline" (doing much of the donkey work for my lawyer who is handling a case for us re our grandchildren = 3 toddler boys custody). I am "under the gun". Cannot open EITHER of my flash drive copies (have 2 copies of docs there), one saved in XP, to upload to husband's desktop, and the one the WORD 2007 opened correctly with NO problems, and text was beautiful. Both files (only two files on the memory stick), have a RED X at the end of the title. Remember, the corrupted one DID save /copy and opened correctly in his computer! Yet, when I try to open it BACK (as a WORD 2007 doc in mine, I get the flag, "NO Can OPEN, SENORA!" When I turned this Laptop (a little gem of Dell's, never a problem), I downloaded a bunch of updates and installed them. I need to log off, power down and boot back up to see if they made a difference. You agree? This is A BOOGER and I don't have time - AND FUNNY - I don't recall seeing an error code, or being asked if I wanted to send the error to Microsoft. Just a threat that upon my incomplete shutdown, (I KNOW it shut down, but sometime in the night, it booted up, since it was running the next morning with not one having touched it). Said "due to your incomplete shutdown, if you don't turn on your MS Security Center NOW, (SEE MY RANT about having a GOOD complete Norton system running, which serves every purpose and more and allows us to network - when we couldn't before). Norton did mention that if Norton had been installed when sharing was instituted, that it could be prevented completely, and advised users of Norton to turn off Norton while setting up Networking and Sharing, and then Turn Norton back on. I'm now going to submit this, shut down, and wait a bit, and boot back up. If problem persisists, you will not need a message, you will hear me screaming at it, all the way down in Tennessee, where I live. ----------Knitallnighter (can't sleep when my LAPTOP won't work either)

OK. I will keep monitoring this case. If there is any update, please feel free to let me know. Regards, Novak