Is there a need for anti-virus software?

[George]

I doubt there would be any problem other than to make sure to turn off any firewalls and/or spam blockers when attempting to download or register the program, download updates, download updated databases, etc.

I've not noticed any problems running virus protection along with a firewall and the new MS spyware running in the background.

George

Here's what I'm running, nothing elaborate, and it's not slowed down when testing.

XPHOME UPGRADE FROM 98SE SP1,SP2
DIRECTX 9.0 (4.09.0000.0901)
INTEL P4@1600MHZ, 512MB RAM
GIGABYTE TITAN GA81DX
MAXTOR 40GB, SEAGATE 80GB CLONE
ATI BUILT RADEON 7500
CREATIVE SOUNDBLASTER PC1128
PLEXTOR 712A AND SONY 710DL