The windows Firewall is on by default, as is the Windows Defender. Neither have any noticeable resource hit.
Add a lightweight free AV like Avast or MS Security Essentials (new) and the resource use will remain unnoticeable.
My experience with AV's is that they bloat the system in almost direct relation to their cost.
When MS wanted a rock solid networking system they hired a top man from Dec. (I've forgotten his name). The guts of it used NTFS and led to Windows 2000.
He knew about 'security' but didn't put in the controls at the core level which up to then prevented Virii being possible. All professional system OS's had architectures that made Virii impossible. viz Unix.
That cross MS is still carrying.
No shortage of other OS's that don't have Virii. But Macs cost a lot more money to buy, so fall into professional hand traditionally. A friend called Jeremy Allison who co wrote Samba has said some really rude things about some versions of MS operating systems, but 'bangs per buck' a PC using windows is still top of the pile !
Windows 7 is , as far as I can see, a quantum leap forward in quality. And I greatly appreciate all the help I've received getting this OS to work OK. I maybe ignorant about lots of things about W7 and Vista but I'm quiet good on computing history going back to when Ritchie wrote 'C' in the late 1960's from a bcpl start.
Maybe Window 8 will fix that virii problem ?
Tim
Interesting history, some people like MS and some don't, that's life.
Glad you got Win7 going like you want it to.
Win8, coming soon.
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