I don't own a laptop, and don't much want to give up my desktop because I like full size keyboards and so on. However, I'm considering a netbook for use when traveling. My wife gets cranky if I try to use her laptop too much when we're away from home.The problem is that I need remote access to my employer's web site. They require Win XP Pro. I think it has something to do with how they have Citrix Server and some associated Java applets set up (Sun Java won't work reliably with the remote access) but I really don't know what the details are.

1. Best Antivirus For Xp Netbooks Free

One irony in this is that my office PC has Win XP Pro with Sun Java, not MS Java. But of course I don't need Citrix Server when I'm at work.So far all the netbooks I have seen run either Win XP Home or some version of Vista.Any suggestions for a Win XP Pro netbook?I wonder whether Win 7 and it's XP mode will be an option in a few months but I don't know whether netbooks will have the hardware required to use that Win 7 feature. I knew that running XP mode on Win 7 might not be possible. I can always hope that my employer eventually moves up from XP Pro but any change is unlikely as long as Microsoft does not force the issue. I had XP at home for several years before we upgraded to XP at work.Since I'm interested in a laptop for use for light work away from home I don't really need a large screen, high processing power, a built-in optical drive and so on. I would mostly use it for email and web browsing. I suppose I might try to stream Netflix content but that would depend on the connection speed.

In my experience, hotel WiFi bandwidth has not always been too good.Anyway, the portability and low cost of netbooks is what is driving my interest. I could consider a larger notebook if necessary. If I have to buy an upgrade license to get XP Pro then that would significantly affect the economics. Ok, this is just one of a dozen Atom CPUs that will have EM64T.

NO ONE should tell you yes or no but ask you to answer which machine you have to work with or tell you to do your research.Back to XP Pro.Let's say you handed me a netbook with XP Home and need XP Pro. All I would need is the netbook, then I uninstall the antivirus, firewall and in short all added security softwares since we must give MSFT's installer a clear road to get to all files.Now I plug in my USB DVDRW drive and wait for the netbook to find it. I'll have logged into XP HOME with my administrator capable account and then I slip in my full retail copy of XP Pro SP3 and take it's offer to upgrade the installed OS.Done. Only 2 or 3 hundred bucks for XP Pro but we can do this. In fact this is how it was done recently.Bob.

From Home to Pro for a school using a volume licensed copy of XP Pro upgrade. Of course you wouldn't be using this particular offering but the upgrade disk worked fine here. There is no noticeable performance change. I can tell you of one annoyance you may encounter with a netbook that's not used regularly (and this goes for any PC, actually). You'll have AV, anti-spyware and such installed that will have scheduled scan times. If you set these to run missed scans and updates at startup, you'll find yourself waiting for what seems like an eternity for these machines to finish their background processes if it's been a while since they've been used.

You'll also want to lean out the number of startup items in general. Laptops tend to loaded with non-critical ones. They are, for us, a nice alternative to a full sized laptop to take traveling but I'd charge them up and let them update themselves right before hitting the road. The OS version.Home or Pro.won't be the bottleneck. With volume licensing there's no dealing with activation issues so you can fully configure one PC and clone the rest. But I do want to relay that our experience with using a netbook for travel purposes has been quite positive. My wife and I recently found ourselves traveling separately and she took the device with her.

My laptop is company owned and configured to only work using their VPN.bummer. I may consider buying another netbook but want to see what's going to happen with Win 7 and if of the graphics deficiencies will be addressed. But, for the price of XP Home + an XP Pro upgrade disk, you may find a small and more capable laptop. It will come with Vista but might offer either a Win 7 upgrade or an XP Pro downgrade.

I'm not sure but it is possible I have an XP Pro upgrade license available from a machine that I removed from service. If the disc is still in my pile of stuff it would be from the original release or possibly SP1. If I were to install an XP Pro upgrade that old over a fully upgraded XP Home would there be any predictable problems other than the need to install the relevant security updates?I'm wondering both about the question of whether an old version of XP Pro would support all of the internals for a new machine as well as the question of whether installing an older version would create any weirdness. You can 'slipstream' SP3 into your older XP Pro Upgrade disk. Actually, you're an.iso file to burn to new media.

It won't contain updates since SP3 was released but these are easy enough to recover. I've done such numerous times without experiencing any weirdness. You'll need to use the key code that came with the upgrade disk and hope that MS doesn't recognize it or a phone call might be necessary. I'm presuming the issue you're trying to resolve has something to do with joining a domain. Home won't do that but Pro will.

I joined this forum today in the hope of fining exactly what you offer, and I thank you for it. I apologize for not knowing how it would route and/or id my request, but hope this is what you mean by your preferred approach.Anyway, everything you did, even to the type and number of machines, is exactly what I want to do! Did you also do all of the network linking to the server with the first unit and then mirror it onto the other machines as part of the process, or have to prepare each unit separately for connection to the network server? Thank yo very much for your great assistance. We've no way to broadcast/deploy an image over the network. It was done one machine at a time from an image on an external drive and over the course of several evenings.

I had to do BIOS updates and configurations as well. I love volunteer work.

The pay isn't great but the job security is wonderful. My initial concern about doing this was that the netbooks all came with their own product ID codes but the codes didn't match what was embedded in the installation. I was afraid that trying to upgrade to XP pro with the volume licensed disk which had another PID code was going to cause licensing confusion. It didn't seem to matter. I'm also not sure why XP Pro was suggested as I though Home would have been fine for the intended purpose of the netbooks.

But, I don't make the decisions or write the checks. Posted my concern.I wasn't happy about needing to do the XP Pro upgrade. I thought Home should be fine. Although I like Pro much better, these were going to be used by students only so there weren't going to be a lot of accounts to deal with. CDW-G, at first, didn't send the right disk. They sent a full version of the volume licensed software. I had to dig to fine that an upgrade version existed and tell them what we needed if we were going to upgrade rather than do a complete scratch installation.

The Acer Aspire One P531h-1791 comes with XP Pro SP3 installed. Here are the remaining specs: Acer Aspire One 531h, Intel Atom Processor N270 (512KB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB), 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 160GB hard drive, Genuine Windows XP Pro (SP3), 6 Hour Battery Life (6 Cell Lithium Ion), 10.1-Inch WSVGA (1024 x 600) TFT LCD, Acer CrystalBrite Technology, Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. It's a nicely loaded little system. I had recommended it for a friend and so got to check it out and image it for safekeeping before we booted it the first time. It's a dandy little system after you get done swearing about the under-sized keyboard (endemic to the breed).

My only complaints were 1) very poor color control/rendition with the built-in Web-cam and 2) when you position the screen for optimum viewing angle, the Web-cam only sees the top of your head. Oh, sure, I want a standard keyboard in half the space and a higher resolution screen with a built-in 2000-lumen screen projector, but this little puppy will be great while I'm waiting for miracles. I'm about to order one for myself. It even comes with a decent maintenance partition and system image to restore it to its as-delivered state. My own advice would be to make your own image on an external drive with your own imaging tools but the built-in image and tools are the most convenient and next-best solution possible - also great if you're on the road when you need to refresh it.

You can find it on Amazon by searching for.I just noticed another Acer netbook model with XP Pro, the AO751h-1196, with an 11.1' screen and otherwise similar specs (maxed-out) including the essential 6-cell battery pack. For about $80 more, I might just give that one a try instead and see how it stacks up against my friend's P531h.Enjoy (XP Pro)!

.Best Overall: McAfee Total ProtectionFor many years McAfee ranked near the bottom for cybersecurity. It caused computers to drag and lots of malware to sneak through. However, since cutting ties with Intel in 2017, McAfee has worked hard to become more secure while using fewer computer resources, and it has paid off. In the last two years, security test labs, have seen McAfee become one of the best in malware detection and protection. This year we can clearly see it earns the top spot. On top of earning a perfect 100 percent in both protection and performance - which looks at how much slowdown it causes on your computer - McAfee has a long list of advanced security tools. This list includes a firewall that keeps hackers, snoops and identity thieves from sneaking in through your network and boots off anyone trying to steal or piggyback on your internet connection.

Its PC Boost scans your entire system for any vulnerabilities. It looks for outdated software programs and helps you bring them up to date, which makes it harder for ransomware to attack. It encrypts and saves your files to McAfee's online backup storage. Its robust parental controls allow you to manage when and how long children can be online and what they have access to while there. Last, but not least, McAfee's webcam monitoring makes sure no person or software accesses your computer's video camera without your permission.Because of the sheer number of features included with McAfee Total Protection, it becomes a little overwhelming to find some of them on the dashboard. It took us a couple of hours of consistent use to become familiar enough to re-find what we needed on later occasions. Even then a few of them weren't as intuitively placed as we'd like, so it took a few tries to find them.

Since most tools are already set up and enabled, there wasn't a lot that we needed to do to feel fully protected by McAfee Total Protection. During our tests of the best antivirus software, Bitdefender consistently stopped threats before they had a chance to start the download process, including ransomware, Trojans, and rootkits. When we attempted to visit a website that harbored malicious links and files, Bitdefender usually blocked them and displayed a warning message about what was lurking there. It did an excellent job of blocking phishing schemes, including those designed to look like social media and banking login pages. A couple of threats Bitdefender wasn't sure were completely dangerous, but instead of letting them go free, the files were placed in the quarantine folder. This folder allowed us to look at them first before allowing Bitdefender to take care of them. When Bitdefender stops a threat, it scrubs your system to make sure it is clean.

It then permanently removes the malware in a way that it can't escape and re-infect your computer.Virus and system scans take a bit longer than other antivirus solutions. Most antivirus programs take about five minutes to perform a quick scan and 20 for deep scans.

Bitdefender took twice as long. However, Bitdefender doesn't use a lot of system resources, so you can still work and play online without noticing any slowdown. I was able to upload and download files, send email messages, watch videos, and play online games while Bitdefender scanned our computers. I didn't experience any slowdown or interruption from the program. Social Media Protection: VIPRE Advanced SecurityVIPRE Advanced Security is one of my favorite antivirus programs because of how easy it is to use. Its minimal use of computer resources and how quickly it stops malware from infecting computers were also strong reasons to recommend it.

Best Antivirus For Xp Netbooks Free

In my tests of the best antivirus for Windows 10, VIPRE stopped all malware downloads before they had a chance to infect my computers. While it was doing that, it ran so quickly and lightly I could hardly tell an antivirus program was installed.

Safe browsing is enabled from the VIPRE dashboard instead of requiring you to install and activate browser extensions. VIPRE also scans your Facebook timeline and lets you know if anyone has posed a malicious link or is trying to break into your account. This program has a few extra security tools, including a firewall, a tool not many basic antivirus programs include but an important one to have. It monitors email messages and blocks and links or downloads sent in them. If you are sent suspicious messages, like phishing schemes, VIPRE sends a copy of the message to its quarantine folder.

Here you can open and read messages in a secure space without worrying about anything dangerous being let out.The biggest complaint is VIPRE has a bit of a learning curve. Even though its dashboard isn't cluttered, and it is a basic antivirus program, come of the file and features take a bit to locate. We had to relearn where some of the tools were - usually found by scrolling down further. After a day or two, we got the hang of it.

Free Security: Avast Free AntivirusFor a free program, Avast Antivirus does an excellent job. In our test of the best antivirus software, I saw Avast stop 98 percent of all threats. It did have trouble blocking a few phishing schemes, but Trojans, rootkits and ransomware were all easily stopped. Avast stops malware files as they are downloading, and before they have a chance to infect your computer. And if you try to access a dangerous website, including most phishing schemes, Avast displays a warning message and has a popup warning, too. One impressive quality of this free program is the amount of extra security tools that come along with it. It includes a VPN and password managers.

We were particularly impressed with the deep system scanner that looks for all types of vulnerabilities on your computer, like loopholes in your browsers and outdated drivers and software. These are weak spots where ransomware and hackers tend to sneak in, so we're always impressed when an antivirus solution includes them. Avast doesn't have a firewall, but its Wi-Fi monitoring tool watches out for anyone trying to steal, or piggyback on your internet connection.Because it is a free program, you will see a lot of pop-up ads asking you to upgrade your subscription. The Avast Antivirus dashboard lists all the tools available from Avast, but clearly marks those you cannot access unless you pay for them. These include a personal firewall, data shredder, and webcam monitoring.

Also, we found Avast Free Antivirus uses up a lot of computer resources that resulted in test computers running noticeably slower. Resource Friendly: Kaspersky Anti-VirusWe could tell from the beginning that Kaspersky is a very light program. We didn't need to wait long for the program to set up and be ready to use. While it was performing deep scans, we were able to use our computers without experiencing any slowdown. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is a very basic program without a lot of extra security tools, but even its more advanced applications, like that have several more tools that still don't cause computer drag.One of the features we like about Kaspersky Anti-Virus is its virtual keyboard.

This digital keyboard pops up in the web browser and lets you 'type' without worrying about keyloggers or other internet snoops seeing what you are entering. This is ideal for shielding usernames and passwords as you log into online accounts. It also a good security measure when entering in bank account or credit card information while shopping online. The biggest downfall of Kaspersky Anti-Virus is the black eye it received in 2017 when Kaspersky was accused of using its computer protection programs to gather classified information from government computers and filter that information to the Russian government. Government has since required Kaspersky removed from all its agencies' networks and has asked its workers not to use it on personal devices, especially if they do any work from home.

Kaspersky's claims, 'As a private company, Kaspersky Lab has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts.' Found no evidence that Russian hackers used Kaspersky, and the U.S. Government never placed sanctions against Kaspersky that would have banned its use entirely in the United States, even among private users. In short, we haven't seen any evidence that suggests Kaspersky isn't safe enough for consumer use.

Virus Free Guarantee: Norton AntiVirus PlusNorton AntiVirus Plus comes with a few extra features that aren't commonly included with basic antivirus programs, including a firewall and a password manager. Both are essential tools, beyond stopping malicious downloads, for keeping your entire computer safe and protecting your online identity. The firewall monitors your internet connection to make sure nothing is sneaking in, or sensitive information is accidentally being sent out.

This is an excellent way to stop hackers and some ransomware threats. The password manager helps you create and save complicated passwords for logging into online accounts. This makes it more difficult for trackers and internet snoops to swipe your login credentials, but also lets you create passwords that are difficult to hack without requiring you to memorize them.

Another great feature of Norton AntiVirus Plus is access to 2GB of online storage. This is a great way to save sensitive documents and files in case your computer becomes infected with ransomware and to hide essential data from hackers. It's also helpful when restoring your computer after a system crash or virus attack.In our tests of Norton AntiVirus Plus, it stopped most malware files we attempted to download. We did notice a couple of threats we were told were stopped had still downloaded completely. Norton AntiVirus found these threats during a deep scan and took care of them. It was a bit disheartening that a couple of threats got through but also encouraging that Norton was still able to recognize and clear them at some point.

It is also comforting to know that if our computers had become infected to the point that the threats couldn't be removed that Norton's virus-free guarantee would have given us access to its experts to help clean and restore our systems. Perfect Protection: Trend Micro Antivirus+ SecurityTrend Micro is impressively good at stopping malware threats. In our tests, Trend Micro was only one of two antivirus programs that successfully prevent every single one of the over 350 malware samples used. And it didn't wait until after the file was downloaded entirely before snatching the threat. Instead, it stopped malware during the download process, so there was no chance of our computers becoming infected.

Trend Micro also prevented us from accessing phishing schemes and other dangerous websites known to harbor malicious links by displaying a warning message with some information about what was being stopped. This is done by using web reputation technology that looks for signs of a fake site and quickly marks it as dangerous. This antivirus program includes Pay Guard, a tool specifically designed to shield your online banking and shopping transactions so personal, account, financial and other sensitive information isn't tracked or stolen. Pay Guard lets you store credit card numbers and bank accounts in it, so you don't have to pull out your credit card every time you shop online, much like a password manager stores passwords, so you don't have to remember them. However, Pay Guard has a lot more protects to keep your information more secure from being stolen.As impressed as we are of Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security, it did create a noticeable slowdown on our computers while installed and created a lot of lag while running virus scans. It was frustrating trying to download or upload files or even navigate the web because our mouse couldn't keep up with our movements. In between scans, the lag wasn't as bad, but it did take websites longer to load and apps more time to open.

Fast Protection: Webroot AntiVirusWebroot AntiVirus is impressively fast when stopping threats. Downloads were stopped and websites blocked before we had a chance to blink.

And where other antivirus programs took an average of five minutes to perform deep virus scans, Webroot took under a minute. During tests using live malware, Webroot stopped 98 percent of these threats, which is above average for most antivirus programs.

And Webroot didn't create any lag or drag on our computer while either installed or while scanning. We were impressed to see Webroot AntiVirus includes a personal firewall, a tool that is incredibly important for the overall security of your computer, but not often included with bare-boned antivirus programs. This firewall watches your internet connection to make sure hackers, ransomware, or other snoops aren't trying to sneak in through your Wi-Fi.

It also makes sure sensitive information from your system isn't leaving through this connection without your permission. Webroot's firewall also ensures no one is trying to steal or piggyback on your internet, which would cause your connection to run slower or use up monthly data use quotas quicker.As great as Webroot is, we did find it a little challenging to navigate through the user dashboard.

There is a lot of text, and not all of the text is links. Several tools are found by clicking on a link that then expands. And even then, a few tools redirect you to the Webroot webpage where you are taken step-by-step through the process of enabling them. Some tools can't be used from the main landing page; instead, you need to find the setting icon and click through to more links and tools. Webroot does offer other computer security programs that have more tools available to them. These are still listed on your dashboard but clicking them won't give you access to use them until you pay for them. Bottom lineWindows Defender is pretty good at stopping a lot of threats from infecting your computer, but in both our own and in other third-party lab tests, results show it isn't foolproof.

We strongly recommend installing an extra pair of eyes to help stop malicious downloads before they get the chance to attack your system. We like because of how quickly and efficiently it stops malware, the small footprint it leaves on your system, the number of extra included security tools and the overall value of the program.If you don't need the bells and whistles of a full internet security suite, we suggest using. This antivirus program doesn't use a lot of your computer's resources so that you won't experience a slowdown, plus it does an excellent job stopping malicious downloads.

Though it's a basic program, VIPRE still includes a personal firewall and vulnerability scanner, two advanced tools we personally feel are essential in addition to malware protection.Updated July 30, 2019: We refreshed this list to ensure you're still getting the absolute best options when it comes to your PC's antivirus. Credits — The team that worked on this guide.