I spent a bit of time last night working getting SPYBOT setup
on one of laptops and my wife/kid's computer. Overall I am pretty happy with the application.
I had been using the free version of Ad-Aware.
This is also tied to project at work so I thought that I would try to get some more
exposure and figure out what seems to work & what does not.

I am still trying to get SPYBOT tweaked and I am not sure that I have the ideal
configuration yet. I am not clear if it is supposed to stay loaded and resident or
close out when it is done. I have it scheduled for nightly scans on two computers
so far. I think that I am going to watch it for a couple more days before I put
it on any more computers.

Some observations so far:

Easy to install.

It is does a good good scanning the computer & finding potential items.

It really needs to be used in the advanced mode.

You really need to download all of the "add-in's" for it to get the full functionality
and protection.

It has a nice tool to see & adjust what applications are in your first-run registry
key. This is a great way to remove applications that try to get into your system tray
every time that your computer boots up.

I also like the ability to be able to remove IE Active-X controls that are no longer
being used.

Overall my systems were pretty clean other than a few cookies. I did unload some Active-X
controls and some items that were in my first-run key. Overall the one laptop runs
faster, uses less RAM, and IE is much faster.