Best security setup for Xp???

[weedguru_animal]

To help other users who are going through the same tedious routine of :
backup, strip, paint a fresh Windows layer onto their hard drive...
I felt it would be useful to share my steps here, and get the advice of a few Pros who can explain and counsel far better than myself.

I was using comodo firewall, with avast anti virus...then also running a melody of Malware bytes anti malware, threatfire, adaware.

Do I desperately need avast?
Is the windows firewall safe enough on its own without added support in the shape of Zone Alarm, or Commodo??

The more of these programs I install, the more sluggish XP will become, I assume...so with this new operating system installation I wish to trim down, streamline, keep everything as minimal as possible.

All help is greatly appreciated as always.