Norton Personal Firewall vs Windows XP

Arrrg. SystemWorks is a frustrating tool. It has great utilities but is loaded with so much bloated code that I consider it on the level of some viruses.

XP firewall vs Norton
I'm the sort of person who doesn't bother to know what's going on under the hood of my car as long as it goes on smoothly. I guess the same applies here, but I have to say that I find SystemWorks very handy. About big footprints I wouldn't know from baby bootees, but SystemWorks justifies its existence as far as I'm concerned, little or big.

Just for curiosity - what would either of you (Murray or Craven) recommend in its place?

Knowledge of Windows. Most of what System Works does are typical operating system functions.

Alternative
I have to agree with Craven.. 90% of what Systemworks does you can do through Windows already.. If you prefer the defrag of SystemWorks over the Windows version, then I would suggest DiskKeeper Lite..

Far superior to SystemWorks.

Murray

And I agree with Murray. I've liked SystemWork's defrag and that was teh only reason I used to keep it. But I'd always run System Works off the CD.

DiskKeeper is excellent.

Norton personal firewall vs XP
So, specifically, which of SystemWorks functions are not included in XP? Anything vital?

Anyway, I'll look into DiskKeeper, and thanks.

I think they had a harddrive imaging utility that windows doesn't have. But it's not vital.

I do not use system works anymore so I don't remember all of what it has.

Norton Personal Firewall
One thing I very much like about SystemWorks is the Wipe feature. I've had occasion to use it and found it very user-friendly.

As in wiping data? Do you mean clean sweep?