It seems like the main problem in fighting viruses is that you must boot up
on the infected OS. At that point the viruses are active and in control.

Norton and others provide a CD that you can boot from, but what good is that
if the signatures are more than a week old?

Before the NT architecure took over, it was possible to boot with a DOS
floppy and then scan from the command line. How can we do something similar
today? With WindowsXP, even the "command prompt" boot option takes you
through the normal basic boot process. As a result, the files still won't
delete from a command line because they've already been activated.

Is there a way to boot from a CD, gain access to the NTFS file system on the
harddisk, and delete files and run non-windows antivirus software?

The later version of Norton will boot from the CD, and as long has your
computer has access to the internet, will download a temporary signature
file and use it to scan your computer. Of course, if you cannot access the
internet, then this is not an option.

Bobby


"wdsnews" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> It seems like the main problem in fighting viruses is that you must boot
> up
> on the infected OS. At that point the viruses are active and in control.
>
> Norton and others provide a CD that you can boot from, but what good is
> that
> if the signatures are more than a week old?
>
> Before the NT architecure took over, it was possible to boot with a DOS
> floppy and then scan from the command line. How can we do something
> similar
> today? With WindowsXP, even the "command prompt" boot option takes you
> through the normal basic boot process. As a result, the files still won't
> delete from a command line because they've already been activated.
>
> Is there a way to boot from a CD, gain access to the NTFS file system on
> the
> harddisk, and delete files and run non-windows antivirus software?
>
>
>

"wdsnews" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> It seems like the main problem in fighting viruses is that you must boot
up
> on the infected OS. At that point the viruses are active and in control.
>
> Norton and others provide a CD that you can boot from, but what good is
that
> if the signatures are more than a week old?
>
> Before the NT architecure took over, it was possible to boot with a DOS
> floppy and then scan from the command line. How can we do something
similar
> today? With WindowsXP, even the "command prompt" boot option takes you
> through the normal basic boot process. As a result, the files still won't
> delete from a command line because they've already been activated.
>
> Is there a way to boot from a CD, gain access to the NTFS file system on
the
> harddisk, and delete files and run non-windows antivirus software?
>
>
>

The main problem with fighting viruses is that people leave their computers
open to infection and don't scan/update/protect their computers. Better than
getting rid of viruses after the fact is keeping them out in the first
place.

If a computer is THAT infected that I can't get any AV software to run, I
take the hard drive out and plug it in via usb. That way the computer I plug
it into has the AV software enabled, so anything on the infected hard drive
can't activate, as it might if I booted with the drive in place.