Bitdefender 2009 Av And Thunderbird Options

[BAGS]

Using WIN XP Home SP3 and BitDefender 2009 Antivirus with 750 meg RAM and Pentium 4 2.1 gig. I am copying this from a Ver 8 topic and asking the same question for 2009:

I have noticed a significant slowdown with Thunderbird, latest version. When I get the mail, I can notice a slowdown in receiving it and opening the email. I also see a slowdown in deleting the emails. I am scanning only incoming emails. I also notice that the program seems to stop and refresh the window by first going blank and then appearing again.

The reply and fix was:

Here is the answer I received and it worked for me. "Thank you for your interest in our BitDefender security solution. Please go to the Antivirus->Exception list in BitDefender and add the following path:
C:\Documents and Settings\rmoumene\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\. Make sure you select to exclude it from the on-access scan.

I did that and it doesn't appear to help much. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any help would be appreciated.