I think the Trend Micro (Avanquest) Antivirus (Fix-it) is one of the better products out there. Any of them will slow things down as the antivirus and malware data files grow. You could turn off some of the automated services and do them manually but IMHO, it kind of defeats the purpose. Although there are some who will disagree, I strongly advise staying away from Norton. I personally think it's a space and resource hog. I have also used SPYBOT and find it a very dynamic AV/AM program. What's even better, it is free. As with the others, if you want speed, you'll have to turn off some of the automatic detectors. Another word of caution....if you use Outlook, you will find some of the email antivirus programs will cause Outlook to fail when opening and you have to turn off email protection in order to allow Outlook to open. Trend Micro has resolved that problem with their product and I just tested it today and it works!!.

AR, Your welcome as always. Remember to use CC in its default settings only and consider not using the registry utility unless you are familiar with the registry entries themselves. Also, let's not forget about error-checking. My Computer>right click on C:/ drive>Properties>Tools tab>Error-Checking Check Now>check both boxes>Start>Yes>Reboot system This maintenance service takes a while so don't plan on sitting and watching it. It appears in either a blue or black DOS-like screen so don't panic as to its appearance. It safe and hurts nothing. DA

Here is the direct link from AVG on exactly how to upgrade your AVG. As Owbist says do not remove your current version. direct from the FAQ page on AVG "To install AVG 8.0 Free Edition over the current AVG 7.5 Free Edition please proceed as follows: * Download the latest AVG 8.0 Free Edition installation file from our website. * When you are prompted, please do not open this file directly from the Internet, but click the "Save" button and choose a location, where the installation file should be stored (we recommend saving the file to the Desktop). * Reboot your computer. * Close all running applications, locate the downloaded AVG 8.0 Free Edition installation file (it has a four color square icon and its name starts with AVG_...) and launch the installation. * Follow the installation wizard to install the new AVG 8.0 Free Edition(previous version of AVG will be automatically removed during the installation process). * If a restart is required after the initial configuration, please reboot your computer to finish the installation" Here is a link that might be useful: AVG directions on how to upgrade to AVG8

The reason it used to be advised to disable antivirus programs when installing software was to prevent it from interfering. The concept was that something was making changes to the computer and the A/V tried to prevent those changes. With the advent of Windows Vista and UAC, requiring elevation approval for programs to access/change system files this is no longer necessary. There is one time when it is generally still recommended to disable A/V and that is when installing a Service Pack. There are also times when, during malware cleanup, we recommend disabling security programs so they don't interfere with the process. There is a fairly comprehensive article at TSF that covers most programs, linked below. Here is a link that might be useful: How to disable your security applications