<p>I know this program is so old that it’s practically a collector’s item, but jasdad and I have spent the better part of 2 days rehabbing a computer with this OS for a specific and limited use that does involve the internet. The Norton antivirus had expired, and I’m searching for a security program that supports ME (Norton no longer does). I’m willing to buy one, but would prefer one with a free trial if at all possible.
We’d rather not contribute to the landfills if this computer and this OS can be still be useful. Anyone out there still using this white elephant?</p>
<p>a quick google search </p>
<p>[Free</a> Antivirus for Windows - Open source GPL virus scanner](<a href=“http://www.clamwin.com/]Free”>http://www.clamwin.com/)
[FREE</a> antivirus software for Windows with anti-spyware - avast! Home Edition](<a href=“http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-free-home-antivirus-antispyware.html]FREE”>http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-free-home-antivirus-antispyware.html)</p>
<p>Thanks Sue, Am I being unduly paranoid to distrust unknown companies that pop up when googled?</p>
<p>try googling the the specific product and maybe put ‘feedback’ or ‘opinion’ in the search box too. </p>
<p>I would have suggested AVG but they don’t support ME. I have friends that won’t use a free product (if it’s free something must be wrong with it mentality). They insist on paying for stuff.</p>
<p>I have never paid for a virus program or a firewall. Never had a problem with AVG or Zonealarm.</p>
<p>I’ve had problems with AVG and ZoneAlarm and now use Avast. Avast was one of the first companies out with x64 support so that’s a bonus.</p>
<p>But perhaps finding a copy of Windows XP off another dead computer would allow you to transfer XP over. Windows ME used to crash on me all the time. I upgraded to XP and it was like night and day.</p>
<p>These days, I spend a lot of time on Macs - don’t have to fuss with the AV stuff.</p>
<p>Ya, I was using Windows ME til April on our “big desktop” but then the tax prep software my husband wanted to use wouldn’t run on it so I backed it all up (just in case) and installed XP. I am not a computer whiz, but it was not too hard to do. No files got lost or corrupted, and that old desktop runs like a charm now. I think it was a $99 investment for the upgrade pack. I had to reinstall the ancient HP printer-scanner-fax and download a new driver for it, and although it still prints and faxes just fine, I think it won’t scan anymore. Probably time for a new one.</p>
<p>Me was really fine for what we were using it for, word processing and email, but it was freezing up pretty often. It’s so much better now.</p>
<p>Good to hear another ME to XP success story.</p>
<p>But whatever you do, don’t upgrade to Vista.</p>
<p>Why not upgrade to Vista? I bought a computer with it a year ago and have had zero problems.</p>
<p>dmd77,
you’re lucky!</p>
<p>I have Vista x64 on a 2.0 Ghz Merom with 4 GB of RAM. I find bootup and shutdown time pretty slow.</p>
<p>A Windows ME machine would have shipped around 2000 or 2001. I have a machine that came with Windows ME and it’s spec’ed at a 700 Mhz Pentium 3, 512 MB RAM, 4 MB video card. The bus speed is probably around 66 Mhz (current machines run 800 to 1066 Mhz). I can imagine Vista taking ten or fifteen minutes to boot up if it can be installed on such a machine at all. I think that Vista Basic requires 32 MB of video ram so it wouldn’t install on my old Pentium 3 system at all. My next laptop had an 8 MB video card and came with XP so it probably shipped in 2002. That was a Pentium 3 running at a whopping 1.0 Ghz.</p>
<p>“menloparkmom” you’re lucky!</p>
<p>That’s pretty funny. I get about one BSOD a week with Vista.</p>
<p>“BSOD”? I know I should know what that means but…</p>
<p>blue screen of death. It looks like this:
[Image:Bsod.svg</a> - Wikimedia Commons](<a href=“http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bsod.svg]Image:Bsod.svg”>File:Windows 9x Blue Screen of Death recreated in Fixedsys.svg - Wikimedia Commons)</p>
![http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bsod.svg]Image:Bsod.svg](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bsod.svg%5DImage:Bsod.svg){kind=link}
<p>look familiar?
:)</p>
<p>is it possible to buy a new computer w/o Vista anymore.</p>
<p>FWIW, I have had no problems with zone alarm or AVG, you have to turn off the Windows firewall when using zone alarm</p>
<p>BSOD is the Blue Screen of Death; the typical result of Windows crashing.</p>
<p>ZoneAlarm has had various incompatibilities with various antivirus software over the years. It was annoying enough that I went over to using the Windows Firewall or no firewall at all. Of course Mac OSX is the best - no AV software is needed.</p>
<p>“is it possible to buy a new computer w/o Vista anymore.”</p>
<p>You can buy one of the high-end versions and “downgrade” to XP. There may be some OEMs that will ship with XP running on the system and you get the disk for Vista too. One other alternative would be to buy the machine without an operating system and then buy XP at a store and install it yourself. It can be a lot of work though.</p>
<p>Our computers at work are all new (6 months or so), and they all have XP - a special order from Dell. Apparently, you can still get it, but only on their laptops. So for that reason, I have a work laptop I can take home and finish a project on a weekend - boy, am I lucky or what :rolleyes:?</p>
<p>I would not touch the ZoneAlarm with a 10-foot pole. I had it as a trial version once, and liked it enough to pay for the upgrade when the trial version expired. As we tried to install it, it completely froze our computer (and H and I are relatively computer literate). Apparently, the trick was to *uninstall *the old one completely and do a couple of other things. The instructions did not mention anything about it (nor that this was required with any other antivirus program we used in the past). Calls to their tech support did not go beyond “We are sorry, but it is not our fault, we can not help you, you’ll have to reinstall Windows…” Yeah. 50 bucks worth of Norton for the three computers we use in the house never let us down so far.</p>
<p>BCEagle, the notion that a Mac does not need an anti-virus protection is apparently a myth. A friend who works in high tech says that there are evil hackers in Eastern Europe specializing in Mac viruses. I do not use a Mac, but I’d be cautious if I had to.</p>
<p>“BCEagle, the notion that a Mac does not need an anti-virus protection is apparently a myth. A friend who works in high tech says that there are evil hackers in Eastern Europe specializing in Mac viruses. I do not use a Mac, but I’d be cautious if I had to.”</p>
<p>I started working in high-tech in the 1970s and have CIS and CS degrees. I’m a regular reader of slashdot and take particular note of security issues reported there. If you’re using Firefox, you’re a user of my code. Viruses typically require a way to get in and it’s usually an error by the user. I generally work hard to avoid such errors but there are legitimate websites that get infected. These generally target Windows systems and we have virus databases now that are huge to recognize their signatures.</p>
<p>If viruses do show up for Mac OSX, I would expect it to be reported on slashdot as soon as it is discovered. If it does become a problem, I can always go back to my PowerPC Mac. Or VMS.</p>
<p>Thanks for the Windows ME advice. I successfully downloaded and installed a free antivirus from Avast that seems to be peacefully co-existing with Windows ME. I suspect that we’ll soon upgrade the operating system, but it was great to get it operational with the tools onhand. One less computer for the trash heap!</p>