I have always used a local account as I *think* that the live account will slow my lappy down what do j00 use?
I use the live account. With today's systems and broadband capabilities I don't even consider slowdown anymore. In my personal opinion, with the system you have in your signature, you shouldn't worry about performance from all the default settings in windows 8, your only real limiting factor would be your internet connection. If you are running an average up/down of 5MBps/0.5MBps at minimum, you shouldn't have any slowdowns from using a live account. With over 30 years of experience using different systems, and since windows went huge with Win95 and the internet, IMO the best option is to leave the system handle everything. The more you start tweaking the more you will eventually end up with something breaking. Windows is notorious for falling apart by tweaking system settings. That isn't to say tweaking doesn't help in some instances, it is more to say the differences today are so minimal, that we see more of an increase in our minds *think* than anything else ("I tweaked, and its WOW!" but meh not truly). 15mbps or 15.02mbps. Will we really notice it? No. 3.4Ghz or 3.6Ghz? no. To each their own though, if it works for you and you feel it has made your system run smoother or whatever, good on ya bud!