The laptop that keeps on giving

[AceOn6]

Hi, guys. Hubby and I have decided to pass my 6 year old laptop on to my mother in law so she can do email and web searches. I purchased a new battery as the old one barely held a charge.

The question I have is that it's a Win2k machine, so I can no longer get updates for it from Microsoft. I plan to download and install any available patches, install Firefox, then ditch IE.

Any other suggestions? Is there any free or nearly free antivirus for a Win2k machine that is still pushing updates? She'll be using dialup, so I'm not that worried about other protection.

[RedjackRyan]

Avast is free and one of the better antivirus programs out there. www.avast.com (http://www.avast.com) AVG is good also, not sure if its still free or not though. www.grisoft.com (http://www.grisoft.com)

[AceOn6]

One more.... It's been a while since I configured a Win2K machine. Where's the tab that allows me to configure the max amount of hard disk allowed for the Windows swap file. I thought it was somewhere in System, but I can't find it. Since my mil will rarely run more than two programs at a time, I can change the settings without too much trouble.

[Dee]

Avast is free and one of the better antivirus programs out there. www.avast.com (http://www.avast.com) AVG is good also, not sure if its still free or not though. www.grisoft.com (http://www.grisoft.com)

I use the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition and find it works well.

http://www.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-virus/us/crp/0

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is one of the most popular solutions to provide basic security protection on home and non-commercial PCs. We invite you to join the millions of users around the world who rely on AVG's unique award-winning detection methods by downloading AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.