Hi All

Having read Sticky by Liam858 "Making WinMe Run Well", I still have a few questions. All input is appreciated.

I have a friend who is not computer literate. He is running WinMe and IE 6.1 on an older machine with 64meg of ram, 2Gig HD, cable Internet and until lately..no problems. AV was Norton 2003. He renewed his subscription via Credit Card and received E-Mail confirmation. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that more action to activate the update was required. At any rate NAV shows expired and I am attempting to get a refund and intend to change to a new AV and Firewall for his system.

Primary considerations are:

Any application used must be as EASY to use as possible, ie automatic updates, little or no user interaction, etc.

With this as the PRIMARY concern and with the additional constraint of limited resources which of the following would be best? Obviously, FREE would be desirable.

Firewall....?

AntiVirus..?

I intend downloading and installing newest Ad-Aware for malware detection but comments regarding this category would also be welcome.

I have already scoured the web for ratings, on all these issues but find a divided consensus about which is best. As an aside Norton has kept him going for almost a year with little or no user input. That is the IDEAL solution we are looking for. I will be able to attend his machine maybe once every two weeks. On my minimal setup I have found Agnitum Outpost useful but pay for SRN Microsystems AV.

Thanks to all who respond..