PIII w/ XP

[Vociferous]

Hi. 
My spare computer, which I use for offline work presently, is a Dell Plll Desktop with Windows XP.
I used it when Immunet was version 3. Will the current version of Immunet work with XP? It is a 
600 mHz processor with 768 RAM, so I know I'm pushing it. It would only be used temporarily, in
emergencies.

[ritchie58]

Immunet hasn't supported XP for some time now as you're aware of. Any older builds of Immunet that was compatible with XP (both 32 & 64bit) will no longer work even if you have it already installed or have some (very questionable) old, off-line installer package.

The servers will not process these types of connection requests to the cloud. 

Here is a link to the official home page where you can view the requirements needed to use Immunet. https://www.immunet.com/index

Regards, Ritchie... 

[ritchie58]

Although Immunet won't work there are a few AV solutions that will actually still work with XP. Some are free, some not. 

Here's a link you might find useful from the folks at WindowsReport.

https://windowsreport.com/antivirus-windows-xp-service-pack-3/#:~:text=BullGuard%2C Panda Security Cloud Antivirus Free%2C Kaspersky Lab%2C,free%2C while others come with a price tag.

Having an AV that will provide virus protection is one thing but keep in mind that there exists security vulnerabilities with the XP OS itself that no AV can protect you from.

For that reason, you might want to seriously consider not using your back-up computer for 'any on-line usage' especially any on-line banking or shopping where you have to submit sensitive data.

That's my suggestion for what it's worth.

Cheers, Ritchie...

[zombunny2]

I love that you have kept that machine running so long, and that you still have a use for it! I still use a 32-bit Intel Atom netbook when I need an ultra-portable computer, but that's running Debian GNU/Linux now since XP support ended.

You may be pleased to know that ClamWin has come back from the dead and the latest version of the ClamAV engine has been ported to it. I believe ClamWin still supports all Windows versions back to 98.

There are only two downsides I can see:

1. (You would also have this problem with Immunet) - The standard ClamAV databases main.cvd, daily.cvd and bytecode.cvd currently occupy ~430MB (at the time of writing) just on disk. In other words, loading them into RAM on your XP machine would consume almost all of its RAM, even before we consider the scanning engine, GUI components and Windows itself. In everyday usage I tend to experience ClamAV occupying around 1GB RAM when doing a scan of a directory, whether that's measured using Linux's "top" command or Windows' "task manager" utility. Therefore you may find that scans on your old XP machine simply don't run, or it pages to disk so much that it slows to a crawl.
2. ClamWin doesn't do "on-access" scanning unlike most other AVs (including Immunet). You have to manually scan things yourself on-demand.

Regarding the second downside, years ago I used to just do a daily full scan of all hard disks with ClamWin and a periodic (e.g. hourly) scan of the running processes in memory (ClamWin's "memory scan" option, similar to Immunet's "flash scan"). For an internet-connected machine in the modern day, this wouldn't be enough, but for your offline XP machine I'm sure it'd suffice, even if inconvenient.

Regarding the first downside - if you can find some old SDRAM on online auction sites, old computers your friends have in the attic, or even your local computer repair shop*, just max out the RAM on your board. If you get it to 1 or 2 GB you'll probably find it'll run adequately.

*A few years ago, an independent repair shop near me still had a few AMD 486-DX4 CPUs and 4MB sticks of RAM in stock. Your PIII's RAM is a lot more modern (probably PC100 SDRAM). You might find your PIII can cope with 4 sticks of 256MB (or possibly even 512MB) each of this stuff, giving you enough of a total to fire-up ClamWin.

Good luck!

Edited June 17, 2021 by zombunny2

[ritchie58]

You're right there Zom!

As newer software becomes increasingly more complex, requiring additional system resources, sometimes even a newer computer might need a performance boost by increasing the amount of available Random Access Memory.

For my custom built HP Elite Desktop tower PC I already have the maximum amount of memory installed that the mobo can accommodate, which is 32GB of DDR3 RAM (4 x 8GB 1600MHz [PC3-12800] modules).

OS - Win 10 Pro (Business Edition) x64, CPU is the I7 4790 Intel quad core chip @ 3.8 GHz, hardware overclocked & stable @ 4.2 GHz & 3 X 2TB SSD's using a RAID 0 configuration for faster data I/O, my PC is a "lighting quick monster" as a comparison!