OK, so MS is ending XP support -- I dare say the good folks in Redmond might be deluding themselves if they imagine all they have to do to finally bury XP, once and for all, is remind folks, yet once again, support ends this month. Or maybe they're just a petulant lot? Forced to resurrect the Start Menu [yes it's coming back to win8.1], after their quarter-hearted attempt to just bring back the Start Button, no menu, they were quoted as saying that to users it was like a security blanket. Either way they decided to try annoying anyone running Security Essentials in XP, with a special update that just provides a nag screen. Needless to say, uninstalled.
I've got licenses for Bitdefender, but this was for my XP Mode VM, where all I wanted was basic AV services that didn't drain the already somewhat anemic emulated hardware in win7's Virtual PC [it works, but VBox is a lot better in that respect]. While installation is not low impact, AVG's free software certainly seems to fit the bill. Since there's been complaints of security software blocking the GOTD wrapper, I wanted to post that the free version of AVG at least seems totally fine with it. I did not install the full version you have to pay for -- that would have been overkill.