Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Win2k3 as workstation, and virus protection

A while back I upgraded my thinkpad to 2k3.  Details here.  I've been working with it for a while now, and well, I love it.  I love having full sql, iis6, azman, etc, with me all the time.  It also allows me to test things in win2k3 before they even go to the sandbox staging environment, which is another side effect/benefit.  So all in all, I doubt this box will ever see XP again, except in a VPC. 

There is 1 glaring side effect of using 2k3 as a workstation, though.  Virus protection.  When I first installed 2k3 the first thing I was going to do was load Nor...  Symantec client protection.  No go.  So then I fell back on an old favorite, and installed McAfee.  I've been running with McAfee with no problems since the install, other then I miss some of the features from the Symantec suite.

After a conversation with a friend last night, I was really interested in trying Panda antivirus.  I'm not going to go into details, but my very security minded friend suggested it, and I take his word as bible when it comes to security.  Thanks bro BTW  :)

Again, though, I was faced with the fact it won't install on 2k3.  To get to the point, I love running 2k3 as a workstation.  One thing to consider when you are thinking about making the switch, though, is protection.  Most AV client's won't install, since they require a “server” package to run on 2k3.