Still have one major box running Win. 2K Pro SP4…Really need to keep it up and going. I have Win. XP Pro.SP3 / Linux on all other machines. Running CIS on most and Absolutely LOVE it! Any help, suggestions are sought and would be very appreciated with many thanks and offer of indentured servitude! 
Thanks so much for the quick reply. I was afraid that was the case. I believe that I’m actually already running Comodo Firewall but my company got rooked into a three year subscription with “McAfee Security Center”, which I absolutely HATE! Did I mention that I HATE McAfee? :-TD I guess I was’nt clear in the original post. What I really need is a good AV that I can trust.
I’ve really had it with the Norton’s and McAfee’s, etc., the def. files have gotten so large that by the time you download install and run full scans, you’ve lost half a day because they slow the machines down so much your better off just letting them run solo. Most of my machines are 24/7 so scheduling scans for 2 or 3 o’clock am, doses’nt really make much difference.
So any suggestions, comments? I’m open, but my win 2K pro. sp4 machine that I referenced is extremely important, and as I said must stay win 2K. So I need some thing very trustworthy and robust in an AV program just in case something has gotten through!
Again thanks for your reply any suggestions from anyone!
Every av becomes bloated when its database gets larger.
And i believe more in firewall then in av.
Avira or AVG could be an alternative.
Online Armor would maybe be a solution for you, altough the free version is far beyond the paid one.
I even used to run… kerio 2.1.5 on a lan professionnal network, where some of the computers were hardware outdated and running win 2000 (but, true enough, the server was running unix, and no one was connecting to porn or p2p).
Also don’t forget that security does not rely only on third party windows security software, but also on using reasonably secured browser and mail clients and on enforcing windows security itself (avoid to run under administrative account, disable and xp lite whatever unneeded services…)
Again thanks for your quick reply. I like you have no one looking up porn or p2p except one person that continues to sneak around and p2p with limewire after many instructions not to. So I’m really not sure what may be lurking under the surface or running around the LAN. I do agree with you on the firewall importance and believe in hardware and software firewalls, but an AV with stateful RealTime scanning can PROTECT as well as REMOVE. I would just like a good one other than “Norton or McAfee”. I have been using them both since the early 90’s and have watched them go from good to WORSE. Thanks again for the info and links.
I presently have no malware concerns on my personal computers, now running xp (and cis 3).
I run avira free and i don’t believe as i said in any av; nevertheless, it is good enough for every leaktest and real malware i deliberately load only for testing purposes.
It might not be strong enough for people playing games, p2p, adult sites and other security issues, but i believe that no software is able to overcome what might be analyzed not as its own failures, but the user’s ones.
I only had 2 or 3 virus in more then 10 years and the last one under xp/comodo/avira, fetched when traveling to a internet cafe with a usb stick.
The 2 other ones, at windows 2000 time, were my fault (i used to like in that time “dark side” software download).
And i have, during this period, often used no av whatsoever, but always a firewall: kerio 2.1.5, online armor, pc tools, comodo 2…
And i still run kerio 2.1.5 on a small xp eeepc 4G… because the sizes of the screen, ram, and flashdrive forbid using whatever else: the toy is still running fine, thank you.
What i want to illustrate is that, in a “safe surf” context, as should be the case in a professionnal lan, there’s no need to be “top of last day software” (the supermarket next door is still running NT4…, and my professionnal server is running very outdated SCO Open Server)
But there definitely is one to forbid whatever mail clients, browser, p2p softwares… you don’t want to be used: make for them a blocking rule in your firewall (it of course has to have a password and the impossibility for the non administrators to change any rule, also meaning that the right ones have to be made first).
And of course, anyone in a company infringing the security rules deserves to be fired.
Why don’t you migrate the only remaining 2000 computer to xp (or to some linux flavor?). I also loved 2000 for a very long time, and i still do, i hate all the default xp multimedia stuff, but some day or another, you don’t find anymore softwares running windows 2000, cis is a good example (or, in a near future, even xp, but it is another question)
maybe i can easy the pain a bit: if you dress down XP well, it uses almost the same amount of system resources, only a little more memory.