The weirdest thing just happened to my laptop

I dual boot with Vista and XP. I was downloading 3dmark06 in XP slowly (using firefox). Two hours and 450mb later, the laptop just crashed and restarted. I didn't do anything to it. It was just weird. I wasted 2 hrs on the download

 

I doubt this is the case yet, but if you're using any of the Vista Betas they will fully expire soon. When this happens the computer will reboot every two hours.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/preview.mspx

Ok, after reading the above, I think you're still good even if you are using the Beta. That means more info will be required to figure out why it rebooted.

Was there an error on the BSOD? You should set the computer to NOT automatic reboot when fatal errors occur. Then check and see what's causing the problem.

 

For your download you can use a download manager. It speeds up the download and if it gets interrupted somehow, it can continue from the point it left off.

I use the Free Download Manager from http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm

 

Thanks. I just downloaded and installed the latest version. I remember I downloaded this software a long time ago, but found it too difficult to use. I am using something called downthemall with firefox now. It's super easy to use because it is integrated with firefox. I can right-click on a download link and click on downthemall and it's downloading. However, it doesn't seem to offer as many options as free download manager.

I downloaded something with freedownloadmanager to test it. It seems super fast. I am looking for a way to right-click instead copy-and-paste the link. Thanks for sharing.

Edit: Never mind what I said. I found that when I click on a download link, free download manager takes over. This is even faster than right-clicking.

 

You could try flashgot. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/220

 

Thanks. I am trying flashgot out right now.