If your original Norton came with the laptop, there should be a disk included with what you got that will allow you to reinstall everything that you paid for when you got the machine. Some OEMs don't give you the disks. I don't deal with them and would return the machine and demand a refund if they didn't instantly come up with them. (I've done so in the past - once.)

Unfortunately, even if you have the disks, relabeling by the OEM may make it almost impossible to tell which disk the program you want is on.

With WinXP, especially if you're signed up for automatic updates, you may have received an update that includes their AntiSpyware and Popup Blocker. Theres also a "Malware Remover" that comes automatically once a month with mine.

A few sites won't connect you with popups blocked, but if its the Microsoft blocker you should get a banner at the top of the browser window that you can click to say "allow popups for this session only."

I thought I saw a complaint about a "Your machine may not be protected" warning somewhere up above, but perhaps it was another thread. That warning usually comes from the WinXP SP2 firewall update, and you should go to Start|Settings|Control Panel|Security Center and tell them to quit worrying. The setting is something like "I have my own AV program and I promise to keep it up to date."

With a dialup connection, occasionally your browser will revert to "work offline" but will still show you pages that are in Internet Temp storage, so that it looks like you're on line when you're not. Usually there are other clues, but my dialup (my ISP actually) drops connections randomly and fairly frequently, so I know that it does happen. In IE, a click on the "File" button will roll down the menu, and show a check mark by the work offline choice, so it's easy to check.

John