Most common - unknown problem of Windows. - As part of "Energy Saving" your network card will turn itself off, and you'll lose connection to the Internet!
To prevent that from happening in Windows XP:

1. Go to "My Computer" icon, that hopefully is on your "desktop".
Otherwise find "My Computer" under the Start Menu.
2. Right click, select "Properties" (at bottom of list)
3. Select Hardware (in Tab at top)
4. Click on Device Manager Button
5. Click on "+" next to Network Adapter(s)
6. Double click on your network card
7. Select "Power Management" Tab at top right
8. Uncheck (the default is checked)
"Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"
9. Click "OK" button at bottom.
10. Quit "Device Manager", Close "System Properties"

If that Device (your Ethernet Network Adapter) is turned off cause you stepped away from the computer or got caught up in a phone call, you'll lose your Internet Connectivity.

In fact Google Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power and you'll see EVERY
manufacturer of Network Adapters recommends unchecking the energy saving settings.

Windows Vista SP1 RC :

That program is now available here. Will try it out on the Vista Home Premium installed on my MacPro and report back.

FOLLOWUP: It's installed with less grief than the XP SP3, but the installation took way too long,
(over an hour), with too many reboots (3 ?), and zero useful information while processing, cycling through "Stage 3", "Stage 1", "Stage 2" multiple times. I wonder how much information is sent back to Microsoft.

Comcast and Tivo:
At the end of November 2007, Comcast announced that its DVRs withTiVo would now be available to the general public. A month later, apparently only one person has had it installed. His story here. I can believe his grief, if you telephone 1-800-COMCAST and ask them about Tivo, nobody has been trained on it, and they don't know what you're talking about.

New Software for the PC in my MacPro

I've been adding software to the Windows XP PC in my MacPro
============

1. Windows XP SP3 RC1 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=75ed934c-8423-4386-ad98-36b124a720aa&displaylang=en
For a Intel Macintosh one needs to add a key to the Registry for the Installer to work
You need to create a regkey (STRING VALUE) (REG_SZ) called BootDir under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
and set it to C:\ This solves a problem
Otherwise you get an out of disk space error when the Installer looks at the BootCamp partition and the Install fails.
=======================

2. and a new Firefox I like Firefox 3.0b3
http://mozilla-firefox.en.malavida.com/d4139-free-download-linux

I like that you can save your tabs between sessions.
Check for updates daily.

Bye Bye Moviebeam - An ill considered business to give consumers less and charge more has now totally failed. All 1800 remaining subscribers now lose. February 14, 2006 I detailed what a poor proposition Moviebeam was. How do I get a job saving these folks from themselves?

MS Windows Vista - So I boot into my Hard Drive with MS Windows Vista for the first time in 2 weeks, and Microsoft has 200 Megs of updates, security patches etc to download, requiring a reboot. This doesnt even include the soon to appear Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Then my Kaspersky AntiVirus latest update also wants a reboot.
Also due soon, Windows XP Service Pack 3, which allegedly speeds up XP enough that you wouldn't want to use Vista, which I hardly do anyway.

Will Steve Jobs retaliate?:
7 years ago when the head of ATI let slip that their newest graphic
cards would be included with soon to be released high-end Macintosh
computers Steve Jobs went ballistic for them leaking that. He
retaliated by starting to use NVidia Graphics cards.

http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=117

Now, with AT&T's CEO leaking that new iPhones next year will have
3G built in, I would imagine Steve is rather upset.
1. For the leak.
2. Because it could hurt current sales.

I expect Steve is now speeding up work on a CDMA phone.

To not violate contracts with AT&T, the similar phone will be
an "Apple Phone" and not an "iPhone", since AT&T has
exclusivity for 4 1/2 more years with the iPhone.