[I posted this yesterday elsewhere. Maybe someone of this group
could kindly help me or refer me to the proper group.]

Hello,

If I power up my computer and do nothing, then I would expect that
the free disk space should remain constant, or essentially so (due
to some log file lengthening). However, I found with estonishment
that this is far from being true. As can be seen from figures in the
attachment, in the 6 test runs I lost a total of some 18 MB free
disk space through doing nothing! Could someone please explain
how this could happen? Is this a common phenomenon? Most puzzling
for me are the results of the first 3 test runs. Since the computer
was disconnected from the internet, it can be entirely excluded
that any downloads from the internet were done (e.g. for software
updates) in the background without my being noticed.

Regards,

M. K. Shen

-----------------------------------------------------------

The 6 tests were done consecutively, each time with the computer
first shut down und powered up anew. The first 3 tests were done
with the computer disconnected from the internet, while the last
3 with the computer connected to the internet. In all cases no
browser was started. Absolutely nothing was done by me, excepting
using the "dir" command to get the amount of free disk space in
bytes. Each test lasts 30 minutes.

Time Test 1 Test 2 Test 3

0 226.668.072.960 226.667.782.144 226.661.388.288
10 226.667.511.808 226.664.132.608 226.611.388.288
20 226.667.495.424 226.664.128.512 226.660.995.072
30 226.667.474.944 226.664.124.416 226.660.990.976

Time Test 4 Test 5 Test 6

0 226.658.750.464 226.651.840.704 226.650.222.592
10 226.654.695.424 226.653.175.808 226.648.121.344
20 226.653.626.368 226.653.175.808 226.648.121.344
30 226.653.626.368 226.653.175.808 226.648.121.344

I have an HP desktop with Windows XP. I run no particular
applications (database, programs, etc.) and am using the computer
only for Google, e-mail, internet radio and writing letters to
be output to the printer as well as using CDs of language learning
software. Norton is installed. As Browser I use the one from my
internet provider, which is adapted from Internet Explorer, and
further Mozilla Firefox. (There were not activated in the tests.)
Else nothing runs or ever ran on my computer.

Here are some more recent figures of my free disk space obtained
today:

226.636.234.752
226.629.783.552
226.589.392.869
226.527.563.776

Could it be, as a friend speculates, that some spyware, malware
or such stuff gets onto my computer despite Norton? If so, what
should I best do?