WinCrazy's XP Help & Info
Essential XP Virus & Malware Protection - High Quality Freeware !
This is a list of minimum protection software you should be running on your XP system. These programs are very high quality and will provide constant protection from many kinds of viruses and other kinds of malware. It will be running at all times and will update itself automatically.
All of the following programs are absolutely free for personal use.
There is no need to purchase any anti-virus program such as Norton/Symantec or McAffee.
Antivirus Program (Install only one anti-virus program at one time)
Avast Home Edition Antivirus Freeware PREFERRED No banner placed in outgoing email like AVG does.
AVG Free Edition Antivirus PREFERRED
Firewalls (Install only one firewall program at one time. Each of these will automatically replace the deficient XP firewall)
Zone Alarm Free for Personal Use Allows home networking using “Zones”
Anti-Malware
Startup Monitor *** A Must-Have ***
This program automatically catches any attempt to install a program that would be started up automatically on a system restart. Most malware tries to do just this. You will receive a pop-up message asking you to verify that the program trying to add a startup program is legit. If you don't recognize the software's author then deny installation ! Of course, there are many good programs that install startup programs such as AIM, your anti-virus, your firewall, ERUNT, SpeedFan... The list of legit programs is long.
ERUNT *** A Must-Have ***
ERUNT is the only automatic and thorough way to make a Registry backup every time you restart your PC. Most malware adds entries into the Registry without your permission that automatically starts the malware program on system startup. Should your PC become infected despite all other precautions you have taken (this happens to the best of us!), ERUNT can restore your Registry to the time to just before your PC became infected, thus disabling the infection. Every ERUNT backup includes a program to automatically restore the Registry to the date you choose. The ERUNT backups are located in the directory C:\Windows\ERDNT which has subfolders for each backup. A restoration program called ERDNT.EXE can be run from each backup directory to effect the restore process.
It's important to note that even if your XP installation is damaged so much that it is unable to completely start up, but you are still able to start in Safe Mode, then ERDNT can be run to restore the Registry. If XP is even more damaged that you can't even start up in Safe Mode, but you have an XP Installation CD then you can auto-start the XP installation CD and choose to run the Repair Console from the installation CD. Using the Recovery Console's command line you can browse to the ERDNT directories and run ERDNT for a Registry restoration.
Many people first try to use XP's built-in System Restore if they are still able to boot into XP. However, System Restore is very problematic (just doesn't work many times) and much malware deliberately disables System Restore on purpose so you can't get rid of the infection this way.