Hi, Old Grouch!
Congratulations on the new computer! I've been using Windows Vista since April and, although I'm still getting used to some of the changes, I really like it a lot.
Windows Defender comes resident on Windows Vista so your new computer will already have a head start. On my machine, I installed my personal favorite, WinPatrol. See
http://www.winpatrol.com/features.html . I also added
SpywareBlaster from Javacool (see note Re: SpywareBlaster and DEP below). Although I have not found I need additional "protection", AVG Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search & Destroy both work with Windows Vista.
Reminder: You will want to check that the antivirus software you plan on using is Windows Vista compatible.
I expect others may have suggestions as well, but this is a starter for you to consider. If you have questions, I'll do my best to answer.
Note regarding the current release of SpywareBlaster: You may experience a conflict between the current version of SpywareBlaster and the DEP feature of Windows Vista. Although this will be resolved in the next SpywareBlaster release, you may need to do the following, which allowed me to run SpywareBlaster on my computer:
1.) Click on the Start Menu
2.) Right-click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties" (This should display the "System Properties" window.)
3.) Click on the "Advanced" tab.
4.) Under "Performance", click on the "Settings" button.
5.) Now click on the "Data Execution Prevention" tab.
You should find DEP enabled for all programs (default configuration for Windows Vista, depending on hardware settings), you can add "spywareblaster.exe"to the exclusion list by clicking the "Add..." button and browsing to your SpywareBlaster installation directory (C:\Program Files\SpywareBlaster,by default).
