Antimalware, firewall, and other security programs for Windows XP working in 2023 and hopefully beyond

[AstroSkipper]

27 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

There's only one way to find out, and that's to ask Panda, which I will!

I reported an issue to Panda support long time ago. But I never got an answer. So don’t get your hopes up too much, even if you’re a paying customer!  The reviews or comments you can read everywhere in the WWW state a non-existent support. I'm curious to see if they'll reply. Let me know if you feel like it!

Edited yesterday at 07:54 PM by AstroSkipper
corrected

[Dave-H]

Well, I've reported the problem and had an acknowledgement back that the report has been received.
Let's see what happens!

[AstroSkipper]

Yesterday night, I had a further crash of the PSANHost.exe process. I clicked the OK button and after a short delay the process was automatically restarted. The crash was related to the ntdll.dll file. But I couldn’t be bothered to look into it any further. I assume that since 2 July, Panda has been trying to load something that isn’t XP-compatible since there were no crashes previously. Just a theory, of course. But at least there was some self-healing. 

Edited 12 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

Incidentally, one thing that’s a bit of a shame about Panda Dome – particularly for paying customers – is the lack of programme updates since December 2025. That’s nearly seven months.  And here is my statement about the Panda support from January: 
https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/page/86/#findComment-1284505
 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[Dave-H]

That's only for XP users, though.

We discovered earlier that if you download and install the latest version from Panda on Windows 10, say, you get that version.
If you install it on XP, however, it automatically downloads and installs an earlier version (22.03.05).
I assume that is the latest (and probably last) version for XP.

The build date for that version is 12/08/2025, which I think you thought was December because you didn't realise the date was in European format, so it's August 12th, not December 8th, even older than you thought!
The current version is 23.01.00.0000, whose build date is 29/06/2026, so very recent.

Nothing back from Panda support as yet.
I have disabled the real-time scanning, which has stopped Panda interfering with the rest of my system, but the service is still crashing.
In my case I can only tell this by looking at the Windows System Event Log. The service is automatically restarted after 30 seconds.

[AstroSkipper]

23 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

That's only for XP users, though.

This thread is actually only for Windows XP users.

24 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

If you install it on XP, however, it automatically downloads and installs an earlier version (22.03.05).
I assume that is the latest (and probably last) version for XP.

I had written back then that version 23.00.00 is not available for Windows XP, and that much is clear.

28 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

The build date for that version is 12/08/2025, which I think you thought was December because you didn't realise the date was in European format, so it's August 12th, not December 8th, even older than you thought!

Okay. The dates have always been confusing with Panda. There is no official version history, nor is there a changelog. The only file that can be used is VERSION.INI inside the programme folder. However, the build date does not have to match the release date.

Quote

[VERSION]
VERSION=22.03.05.0000
LINE=4.0
TYPE=Release
NINST=20250812_PandaZone
BRANCH=PandaZone
REV=1
BUILD_DATE=12/08/2025 17:26:32
CID=C9BE6BCA-FB59-4987-9875-D4087D53F0E6

[MODULES]
INSTALLER=7.10.00.1004.b
NNS=4.7.0.602
PSBOOT=1.0.34.0
RKPAVPROC=2.0.11.0

I'll just change the date to the build date of 12.08.2025 in my main article and in the list of all programmes.

[AstroSkipper]

I’m already working on a plan B in case Panda Dome 22.03.05 continues to be a nuisance. I’m currently observing version 21.01.00 on my second Windows XP partition, which I’ve never uninstalled or updated. 

[modnar]

Wow! What news!

Also - have you ever had happen that your RAM was at different speed than set in BIOS? I had that apparently since the last time I was changing a disk portion of BIOS, never touched RAM, today I finally checked with RAM tester and saw the numbers (no errors, just too much speed) - a reset of "Case open" status and F10 and this is settled. No more exacerbation of PSANHost problems with this.

Even better - Since at least here .01 and .05 versions do not function properly, I downloaded .04 version from Sooftware (thank you @AstroSkipper) and no more PSANHost crashes! It also installed very quickly compared to .01 or .05 (which even failed more times than not). Peace again! Suh-weet!

Well the end of that chapter came rather abruptly - PSANHost crash (and recovery) @ 16:51. At 16:24 was the first self-update since installation (and didn't crash).

PSANHost even crashes every so often while browsing (Serpent 52.9) looks like it's allergic to the browser or something. This whole debacle looks to me like some serious certificate self-made conflict while at Panda they claim XP superiority. We'll see if they at all bother to reply to Dave's mail.

Edited 5 hours ago by modnar
Update

[AstroSkipper]

3 hours ago, modnar said:

PSANHost even crashes every so often while browsing (Serpent 52.9) looks like it's allergic to the browser or something

Apart from the fact that the PSANHost.exe process is rubbish, you need to exclude many programmes – particularly the more obscure ones – from monitoring. And not just the EXE file, but the entire folder in some cases. This also includes all security programmes, such as firewalls and so on, and all programmes that run constantly in the background and have your trust.

Edited 4 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[Dave-H]

Mine seems to be a bit more stable now.
It doesn't seem to crash spontaneously.
The one thing that seems to guarantee crashing it is hitting the start button on the taskbar.
That seems to generate an instant crash.
After that it restarts and seems to settle down and doesn't crash again.

[AstroSkipper]

That sounds like a completely corrupt installation, though. I don’t have any of those problems at all. If I were you, I’d uninstall Panda completely, carry out a deep clean – particularly of all the Panda folders and the registry – and perhaps consider installing the older version 21.01.00.