Stops almost everything except SARS. Product/Link: Norton SystemWorks™ 2003 Professional Edition Synopsis: Includes utilities to protect your PC from viruses, optimize performance, diagnose and fix problems, recover from disasters, clean out Internet clutter, and keep dial-up Internet connections active. Requirements: Windows® XP Home/XP Pro/2000 Pro/Me/98, Pentium® (or compatible) 300MHz or higher processor, 128MB RAM, 180MB available hard disk space, DVD or CD-ROM drive, Internet Explorer (minimum version 5.01 required, 5.5 recommended). Price: USD99.95 (rebates available). Rating: The mother of all guardians. Comment: We last reviewed SystemWorks in Dec. 2001. The 2003 Pro version comes with some new and improved goodies. How else are they going to sell you an upgrade? The current package includes Norton AntiVirus™, Norton Utilities™, Norton CleanSweep™, GoBack® Personal Edition, Norton Ghost™, PerformanceTest™. The latter two are exclusive to Pro. Though Norton has always been devoted primarily to anti-virus protection, with SystemWorks that's just the beginning. It will quickly clean out old, useless files; thoroughly uninstall unwanted programs added after you've installed SystemWorks; suck out junk from your browser cache; delete only those cookies of no benefit; get rid of unnecessary ActiveX controls that screw up your computer; back-up programs for added security; back-up your entire disk to a Ghost image which permits restoration and/or transfer to a new computer; lets you time travel back to before your computer crashed; checks your susceptibility to online viruses and security threats. There's more, but those are reason enough to buy. New features include: Instant message virus scanning; diagnostic and benchmark reports on your total system; stopping worms even before they have been identified (how, we don't know); keeps dial-up connections from being interrupted. LiveUpdate™ is still around, performing background connections to Symantec for new virus definitions, then automatically installing them. A little sign pops up in the lower right hand corner of your monitor to let you know the job's completed. We've found One Button Checkup to be more convenient than before. Schedule it weekly during your nap or shopping trip while it does everything from a Registry scan to a fragmentation check. If you so chose, it will automatically make necessary repairs all by its lonesome. Since you're in the scheduling mood, be sure to have SystemWorks run a weekly virus scan on drives to which you write data. Depending on the amount of information to be analyzed, this could take two or more hours. And do not exclude any file types, 'cause you never know where evil lurks. Give serious consideration to subscribing to the annual protection updates as they will provide the latest anti-threat technology. If you chose not to subscribe, LiveUpdate will still get you the latest virus definitions. Finally, do not put off making a set of emergency floppies. If you don't do it right after installation you'll never find time to suffer through 10 disks. But those are the goodies which can bring your computer back to life when your hard drive suddenly balks. We're speaking from horrifying experience. Should you pay extra for the Professional Edition? If image backups are important to you, yes. PerformanceTest you can live without. Conclusion: It's a cheap way to save your bacon when all hell breaks loose.