If you read my previous post on the matter, I mentioned Bart's PE. Mark does
not want to create/use cd utils, nor does his wife. They wanted a boot disk
(AVG, Mcafee, Norton, whatever...) that does one thing & only one thing... it
boots up with a antivirus remover. They also wanted to be able to update the
antivirus disk with ease (hence no no burning) They saw Bart's PE in use and
didn't want to use it. (maybe once they have more experience but not right now)
I can certainly understand and empathize with Mark and his wife's desire
for simplicity, yes indeed.
Yet things just can't be as simple nowadays as they were when DOS and
dinosaurs ruled the earth and before all these viruses and spyware started
spreading thru the net. It's a bit like trying to repair a modern
automobile as opposed to a classic built in the golden
pre-pollution-control era when shade-tree repairs could be the norm.
You probably read that a recent report stated that unprotected computer is
likely to be infected within 20 minutes of logging on to the internet.
So, yes, you can make DOS diskettes with an antivirus utility, but they
will likely be out of date and hence useless at the time you really need
them. There just ain't gonna *be* any quick and easy "boot with the ol'
diskette and remove the nasty" scenario. Unless perhaps it's an old nasty,
but the oldies seem to go away fairly soon--quarantined or already
protected against.
At that point you've got to get on a network to get the antivir updates or
a fix from somewhere. (Unless you want somebody to come and take your
machine away (sniff) and arghh! remove its hard drive
) With a boot CD
such as we've been discussing, you can get the fix right away by
downloading it by and to your own machine. Once the download is complete,
you can immediately run it, whether it is a standalone removal/update tool
or an update to your favorite antivir/antispyware program.
Yep--that's the way to do it.
You see, commandline versions (come to that) of antivir programs aren't
dependent on a particular filesystem. IF you're running that version from
an XP cmd prompt, it's gonna work just fine no matter where it is. In fact
the win version of the antivir on the hard drive will *probably* run from
Bart's w/o having to be reinstalled into Bart's registry.(Sorry, I'm too
lazy to try it for you myself.) Of course if you install an
antivir/antispyware as a Bart's plugin, the point is moot except that the
need for the immediate update remains.
Therefore if clinging to a DOS diskette for a lucky rabbit's foot is of
critical importance, you may keep the antivir on the DOS diskette but run
it, or a fix or patch copied to it, from the fine 2XExplorer window
provided on the Bart's CD-ROM AFTER you've downloaded the update using the
Off By One web browser also provided by Bart's.
. Would that be having
your cake and eating too or what? You'd only need to burn one lil' ol' CD,
right? Maybe ozzy would kindly do it for Mark and his wife? Be a lot less
work than removing a hard drive, obviously
.
And so Mark and his wife could ahhh! go back to using their much more
reliable, robust, and superior NTFS (which they're no doubt missing
already) and not have to run scandisks and sfc all the time when their
computer gets shutdown prematurely or has a glitch and then have to rummage
around in .chk files looking for whatever got trashed (could have been just
*anything*, right?) in that ol' FAT32 filesystem.
Here Mark and his wife didn't want to have taken the time and trouble to
burn a CD and run the browser/antivir therefrom, yet they spent two days
frustrated and another day or so having their computer removed and opened
and their hard drive removed, scanned, and yes (the horror! the horror!)
reformatted!. Which, if they continue to hold the same wishful thinking,
will be *exactly* what happens again the next time around (one of millions,
though) as well. Except for the reformatting, of course.
You KNOW it ain't rational. But whatever, long as it's paid for.
This is not to mention all the other kinds of problems a Windows XP disk
may have that require more sophisticated utilities than a DOS diskette can
normally provide. (We're on topic here, sorta, Bart's being freeware.)
Finally I should note that in this particular instance all Mark had to do
was to type in "shutdown -a" to stop the rebooting while he was on the 'net
and then go get the MSBLAST and Sasser worm fixes/patches from Microsoft
(or download the latest Stinger) and run them. An extra diskette or CD was
in fact not even needed, let alone an HD removal and reformat.
But of course as an average home user he wouldn't have known that. Yep,
things have gotten more complicated. Nevertheless, googling via his nifty
Bart's browser might have given him that information.
Seems likely they weren't doing much in the way of preventative measures.
Virus-wise, I mean of course. I trust that's all changed. SP2, if nothing
else (also freeware
).