How To desinfect PST from viruses

[neilsanner]

Hi,

I've looked everywhere I know and couldn't find this. I'm searching for
a tool or antivirus software (freeware/OpenSource if possible) that
would scan a .PST (Personal Folders File), and desinfect/Delete all
objects infected with viruses.

Avast and BitDefender both find viruses, but cannot remove them and
update the .PST...

Any ideas?
neilsanner

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You would need a virusscanner that integrates with Outlook then and do a
scan from within Outlook. I believe AVG does that. Note that a virus in a
pst-file cannot activate itself and with the latest version or updates for
Outlook you canot even reach them manually either. It is recommended that
you exclude the pst-file from checking by your anti-virus product to prevent
automatic deletion when it cannot clean a file.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Hi,

I've looked everywhere I know and couldn't find this. I'm searching for
a tool or antivirus software (freeware/OpenSource if possible) that
would scan a .PST (Personal Folders File), and desinfect/Delete all
objects infected with viruses.

Avast and BitDefender both find viruses, but cannot remove them and
update the .PST...

Any ideas?
neilsanner

 

[Vanguard]

Hi,

I've looked everywhere I know and couldn't find this. I'm searching for
a tool or antivirus software (freeware/OpenSource if possible) that
would scan a .PST (Personal Folders File), and desinfect/Delete all
objects infected with viruses.

Avast and BitDefender both find viruses, but cannot remove them and
update the .PST...

You could just run your AV program against the .pst file to scan for
viruses. If there is concern that the AV program cannot interpret the
Microsoft proprietary format in .pst files then use DBxtract to yank them
all the messages and then scan those files. If any of those yanked files
have a virus, just delete the attachment in the corresponding e-mail in your
..pst file. AV programs should not be modifying the .pst file because, as
far as I know, Microsoft has yet to publish documentation that details their
proprietary format in their .pst file, so an AV program yanking out an
e-mail or some its content (i.e., the attachment section) would probably
screw up the .pst file. If the file format is known then the AV program
might be able to clean out the infection.