Typical airport security!! They go from one extreme to another. I can recall an incident in early 1989 I had to hand-carry a set of urgent documents to Paris when I worked for TNT Skypak (as it was known then). As it was an extremely time-sensitive delivery, I was still in my overalls (I was an ops clerk at that time), and had totally forgotten that I still had a retractable Stanley knife in one of the pockets. As you can guess, I triggered the archway alarm when I passed through, but couldn't for the life of me figure out why. All the "usual suspects" were removed (belt, watch, metal-barrelled pens, etc), and still was tripping the alarm. The security guy gave me a pat-down, and lo and behold he found a "foreign object" in my overall pocket. I was extremely sheepish when I had to reveal a knife to him, but quite nonchalantly he asked me if I was on a straight turnaround, and when I confirmed this, he gave me the knife back and passed me through security and onto the flight! Note that the Lockerbie disaster had only taken place a matter of months earlier!! Nowadays, you can't even walk through the security area wearing footwear!!

Don't understand why it chose to do that. I have these programs on my pc as well, and IOLO never touched them, apart from tweaking the registry. Perhaps "user input" is at fault? If you genuinely believe this program is the direct cause of this, get in touch with their customer support.

Ken - when folk ask me about SysMech, I describe it like a librarian that meticulously goes round every shelf in every section, and puts the books back in precise order. Imagine you are in the Mitchell Library seeking a copy of a particular book, only to find that one person has taken it from the Arts & Crafts section, and "dumped" it in the Military History section, then somebody else stumbled upon this same book, and when they were finished with it, placed it on the bookshelf containing the Biographies... Now, think about every single book in the Mitchell being moved around in the same way - that is what a fragmented hard drive would look like. As I say, the wee "librarian" gets to work meticulously putting everything back in order, and even repairs those books with torn pages and broken spines (figuratively speaking).

Buonjiorno, Jacko!! Looking forward to some pics soon!!

Usually, Windows metamorphs into "the next big thing" every 3 years or so. Win 8 is just slightly over a year old.

Lenny - since you have nothing to lose (you're looking at replacing your rig), why not download a trial copy of IOLO SYSTEM MECHANIC? Current version is 12.5, and it does a myriad of things, such as:

Remove redundant files and programs;
deep-clean your ram memory;
defrag / re-align programs on the drive (improves load-time);
maximises your internet settings;
plus a whole lot of other stuff.

The trial is for 30 days. Thereafter, you can remove it from your pc, or you can pay for a years' subscription. You will probably get a discount if you purchase at the end of the trial. I paid (I think)around $20 (about £16)for my annual subscription. Here is the link.

If you have a decent-enough (still working ) monitor, then all you need is a base unit. IMO, ignore all the "bells and whistles" nonsense, and look to see what the output of the graphics card is (after all, your photos are graphics). I have a Compaq base unit which has an HDMI graphics card (as in, it will allow connection of an HD monitor via an HDMI cable). on the downside, the MoBo in this rig only has one spare expansion slot, meaning I am limited in choice as to what I can add (another 3.0, 4-socket usb card for example). If you intend doing quite a bit of Photoshopping on it, you will need something with a bit of "grunt", therefore get a machine with a large amount of RAM (4Gb is Better than 2GB, 8Gb is better than 4Gb, etc). If you choose a pc which is a 64-bit system, you will typically need at least twice the amount of RAM than a 32-bit machine. If you are prepared to splash out a wee bit, John Riley's advice is sound - get your rig custom-built, bearing in mind the points that I've made.

Best of luck!!

Your camera won't normally be recognised as "Pentax K-x" - it usually comes up as "mass storage device", so first thing I would look at is:

(1) hook your camera up to the pc with the cable;
(2) open "file explorer" (if you have Win7/8/8.1, this is the folder icon on the bottom-left of your screen);
(3) if your camera is there (as MSD), double-click (with an sd card inserted). If you have any photos on the card, you should see a thumbnail of each image. If not:

Open DEVICE MANAGER (if you are running Win 8/8.1, you can type this in via the charm bar on the right-hand side), then (hopefully) you will see a device with a question mark inside a yellow triangle. With any luck, this is listed under DISK DRIVES. Highlight the faulty drive, then right-click, then select UNINSTALL. Now, go to the top, and click on (I think) FILE, then (assuming I just pointed you in the right direction) click SCAN FOR HARDWARE CHANGES with the camera still attached via cable. Fingers crossed that it has now registered the camera correctly as a MSD.

PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 - is this the software you mean??

+1!! By the way, Nigel - I've never heard of deportations to Surrey before!!