Locked out?  You could always try using a proper news client to access
these newsgroups rather than the pathetic Microsoft web interface.  You
have one already - it's called Outlook Express.  :-)

Lack of automatic system restore checkpoints:
There can be many reasons for lack of regular automatic system created
checkpoints including running programs such as seti@home, folding@home or
other similar programs, or because a background application is fooling Win
Me's state manager.exe into thinking that the system is not idle although
this is not in fact the case.  Examples of the latter utility include v4
of MotherBoardMonitor (but not v5), Cacheman, The Cleaner (TCActive and
TCMonitor) and Norton's System Doctor where users have reported use of the
Disk Health sensor has prevented the creation of automatic checkpoints.
NAV7 has also been reported as causing similar problems in certain
circumstances. Other users have reported similar behaviour due to their
always on cable or ADSL connection continually polling their HD and thus
giving the impression that the system is never idle.

A significant number of users report that 3.x versions of Zone Alarm also
prevent the creation of automatic checkpoints but this didn't seem to
affect all ZA users including myself for a long time but my Win Me system
stopped making automatic checkpoints some time ago however now that it has
ZA Pro 5.1.011 this problem seems to have been resolved.  Similar problems
have been experienced by BlackIce users and other software firewalls have
also been reported to cause some users similar problems.

One user has reported that B's CLIP UDF packet writing software
(http://www.bhacorp.com/products/clip/clip.html) prevented the creation of
automatic checkpoints and another that they had experienced the same
problem with Roxio's DirectCD.  Another user has also reported that
CookieWall by AnalogX will prevent automatic checkpoints being made if its
"Scan for cookies every .... seconds" is set to a value less than 121
seconds (two minutes).