My wife's computer has Windows ME as its OS. The computer is not compatible to run Windows XP/Vista, so ME is the only option available.

As such, the only version of Ad-Aware that can be run on this machine is Ad-Aware SE Personal. My wife tried to install updates but ran into troubles, and instead of contacting me, she uninstalled the Ad-Aware SE Personal from the computer.

The problem comes in that I cannot find another copy of Ad-Aware SE Personal to install onto this machine. I tried Googling and Yahooing for sources to no avail. Mostly, you're directed to a site that will let you download the newer version but not the older version. Reading the postings on the Lavasoft website leads you to the conclusion that the brass will not support older versions of Windows for no good reasons.

My wife's Windows ME computer works wonderfully, does not have issues, and does all that she wants to do (financials, photos, emails, internet). Like most Americans, we do not have the luxury of upgrading our latent PCs to the latest and greatest, our budgets are stressed enough as is.

So, the bottom line is: Find me a reliable link so that I can download and install Ad-Aware SE Personal. I will deal with the definition upgrade issues as I come across them, but at least allow us to have the option of using one of the best programs out there!

Righto Dennis, I'll give you a quick summary of what went down on here a few months back!

Lavasoft ceased automatic updates and support for Ad-Aware SE last December. But they continued to provide manual definition updates that you have to download and install yourself. These worked fine up until last May, when a size issue caused them to stop working for people using Windows 98/ME. If you were using XP/Vista they continued to, and still work fine. But then if you're using one of these newer operating systems, you'll have updated to Ad-Aware 2007 or 2008!! Therefore those of us still using 98/ME decided it was time to move on to another product that still supported our operating systems. The two products most people migrated to were:-

• Spybot S&D
• SuperAntiSpyware

Both of these pieces of software are well respected and fully support 98 and ME (Spybot still supports 95 !!). Rather than re-installing AA SE and being forced to use definitions 6 months out of date, I'd suggest you use one of the above products to give your wife's machine up to date protection.

Thanks for the update. I already use both of those programs on all of my PCs. Just wish I could find a copy of Ad-Aware for her machine, but I guess that I'll have to muddle along with what I've got. Thanks again.

Well then! There's absolutely no point in using an unsuported product with definitions over 6 months out of date.

I think as far as Ad-Aware SE on your wife's machine is concerned, it's time to throw in the Towle !!!!!!

The latest version is Ad-Aware 2008

And this thread is about the options available to someone running Windows ME.

Why don't people bother to read the entire thread before posting consequentially irrelevant comments?!!?

All you using Windows Me may want to consider a lateral upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro.

It actually has lower hardware requirements than ME.

It's still being supported by Microsoft and most mainstream software companies.

Failing that I have an original install file for Ad-aware SE Personal version 1.06r1 and the last definition file to support ME.

Remember Ad-aware 2008 will run on Windows 2000 Pro.

Good information here, but I'm confused.

If support for AdAware SE stopped, why do they still provide updated defiitions files for it? The latest one is up there on the site and was released on December 8th, 2008.

Very confused.

I've been using AdAware SE for a while and had zero problems, up until the latest update which mysteriously wants to delete my entire operating system saying that every SYS file is a AD.AWARE.SUPERUSER problem or something to that effect.

I was wondering that myself (about the auto updates starting back up) and I came up with two ideas.

The first is because of customer demand and the fact that Ad-aware SE still runs under Window XP and can use the updates newer than the last one that supported ME.

The second one is (I'll have to check into this one myself) that since as far as Lavasoft is concerned, Ad-aware SE is dead, and they are now using the same download link for Ad-aware 2008 definitions as Ad-aware SE used(uses) and they are named the same on the site. So Ad-aware SE downloads them and tries to use them but since they're not written for SE there are major problems, as you have described.

The last difinition file that worked correctly for users of ME was SE1R247.