Deja vu...again. After dealing with the clean install of Windows XP on my desktop a few weeks ago I now have to do the same thing with Vista on my laptop. Dell technical support has "determined" that the intermittent shutdowns are being caused by a problem in the operating system and not some piece of hardware. I don't know if I should believe that or not but I will go through with it and hope that this can prove them wrong and that they can send somebody here or take the machine back for inspection and repair. They won't send anyone out for a software problem however. The clean install is easy enough but even with backing up the essentials, things never really go back the way they were. That is, address books, favorites/bookmarks, Robo Form data, etc., etc. Oh well, at least there is not a whole lot of things on the small laptop compared to the desktop. It is just inconvenient to have to do this.