Need non-auto anti-virus prog with end-scan confirm

[Fidcal]

Anyone know an anti-virus program that does the following.....

1. Has an option to NOT automatically remove any viruses it
finds but report first and ask you what you want to do.
2. Can scan all partitions with above option without stopping
until the end to report and ask what you want to do.
3. Ideally (and this is only a dream so I'd settle for 1 & 2
above only) can flag a file to ALWAYS SKIP.

For example, I like to run it overnight. I do NOT want to check
it in the morning and find it stopped a two-hour scan after two
minutes because it found a virus and is waiting for my
instructions. I want it to complete the whole scan of all
partitions and THEN report any viruses it found in the scan and
ask me for instructions, eg, remove, skip, get info, flag
'ignore in future',etc.

I have looked at a great many and only Norton can do 1 & 2 of
the above of the ones I have tested. Anyone know of any other?

Why don't I want it to auto-clean?

1. Norton regularly finds an old Dos program of mine that works
like recycle bin. It somehow intercepts the old Dos DEL command
and sends stuff to a Trash folder. The program is harmless but
Norton always regards it as a virus because it works like a
virus. Fair enough. But I wish I could flag it as 'ignore in the
future' and also, any anti-virus program that found this might
wreck it if it auto-cleaned.

2. Any real viruses I like to copy to a carefully-marked,
write-protected floppy as a test disk for reference and testing.

3. I'm a control freak and like to tell the program what to do -
not the other way round.

I've just tested AVG Free (pretty good otherwise) and it doesn't
do the above. Incidentally it removed the viruses from one of my
test disks before I realized it wasn't write-protected (I'd
added a new virus to it recently). Gone are some of my
lovely-preserved test viruses accumulated over years! This is
why I'm a control freak.

 

[Jeffrey A. Setaro]

Anyone know an anti-virus program that does the following.....

1. Has an option to NOT automatically remove any viruses it
finds but report first and ask you what you want to do.

F-Secure. Choose "Ask after scan" on the options dialog.

2. Can scan all partitions with above option without stopping
until the end to report and ask what you want to do.

F-Secure. Ditto.

3. Ideally (and this is only a dream so I'd settle for 1 & 2
above only) can flag a file to ALWAYS SKIP.

F-Secure. Choose "Exclude Objects" on the options dialog.

See <http://www.f-secure.com> for product details.

[Snip]

--
Cheers-

Jeff Setaro
jasetaro <at> mags.net
http://people.mags.net/jasetaro/
PGP Key IDs DH/DSS: 0x5D41429D RSA: 0x599D2A99 New RSA: 0xA19EBD34

 

[null]

Anyone know an anti-virus program that does the following.....

1. Has an option to NOT automatically remove any viruses it
finds but report first and ask you what you want to do.
2. Can scan all partitions with above option without stopping
until the end to report and ask what you want to do.
3. Ideally (and this is only a dream so I'd settle for 1 & 2
above only) can flag a file to ALWAYS SKIP.

Except for (3.) there's nothing unusual about your requirement. Many
av scanners when used on-demand can be set to do what you want. What
version of Windows? If Win 9X/ME there are DOS scanners I can suggest.
F-prot for DOS, for example, can be set to scan all drives and just
generate a text file report.


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg

 

[Fidcal]

Anyone know an anti-virus program that does the following.....

1. Has an option to NOT automatically remove any viruses it
finds but report first and ask you what you want to do.

F-Secure. Choose "Ask after scan" on the options dialog.

2. Can scan all partitions with above option without stopping
until the end to report and ask what you want to do.

F-Secure. Ditto.

3. Ideally (and this is only a dream so I'd settle for 1 & 2
above only) can flag a file to ALWAYS SKIP.

F-Secure. Choose "Exclude Objects" on the options dialog.

See <http://www.f-secure.com> for product details.

[Snip]

Thank! I'm checking their site right now.

 

[Fidcal]

Except for (3.) there's nothing unusual about your requirement. Many
av scanners when used on-demand can be set to do what you want. What
version of Windows? If Win 9X/ME there are DOS scanners I can suggest.
F-prot for DOS, for example, can be set to scan all drives and just
generate a text file report.


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg

Thanks. I was testing F-Prot this afternoon and the Windows
version doesn't do what I need. But you may have misunderstood
what I want. F-Prot, like many others, can just generate a
report yes but to then deal with any viruses found you have to
scan all over again! Alternatively, you can laboriously get the
log results up on screen and tediously do a new scan for each
specific file one by one. What they need is so when the report
is on-screen you should be able to click any one and tell it to
disinfect or delete it etc. Not tried the DOS version yet,
(except years ago) but assume it is the same.

 

[optikl]

Why don't I want it to auto-clean?

1. Norton regularly finds an old Dos program of mine that works
like recycle bin. It somehow intercepts the old Dos DEL command
and sends stuff to a Trash folder. The program is harmless but
Norton always regards it as a virus because it works like a
virus. Fair enough. But I wish I could flag it as 'ignore in the
future' and also, any anti-virus program that found this might
wreck it if it auto-cleaned.

NAV has the option to Exclude certain files or folders from scanning.
Why don't you use that option?

 

[Fidcal]

NAV has the option to Exclude certain files or folders from scanning.
Why don't you use that option?

Thanks, didn't realize that was there. Pity they don't add it as
an option after a virus is reported, eg, clean, delete, skip,
exclude. I've been getting the same report for years on that one
program and manually skipping it!

One up for Norton. They will be my last resort because my
current version is buggy and quirky and can't be updated. Locked
up yesterday scanning a large archive and I had to press reset
eventually.

F-Rescue looks VERY expensive and I heard memory intensive.

 

[zack]

Anyone know an anti-virus program that does the following.....

1. Has an option to NOT automatically remove any viruses it
finds but report first and ask you what you want to do.
2. Can scan all partitions with above option without stopping
until the end to report and ask what you want to do.
3. Ideally (and this is only a dream so I'd settle for 1 & 2
above only) can flag a file to ALWAYS SKIP.

I use McAfee's command line scanner for these purposes.. If you have
McAfee installed, it's in the \Program Files\Common Files\Network
Associates\ Folder.

I use a batch file for using various scan options.. Here are some of
the command lines I use..

This will scan ALL drives on your system, Uses full heuristic
analysis, scans ALL files and compressed files, regardless of
extension, and logs a report to c:\vreport.txt, and a list of found
viruses to c:\vbadlist.txt

"scan.exe /adl /secure /rpterr /append /report c:\vreport.txt /badlist
c:\vbadlist.txt"

The following does the same as above, but also tries to clean the
infected file(s). There is one stipulation, however.. McAfee can
scan inside ZIP, LHA, PKarc, ARJ, WinACE, RAR, CAB, and CHM formats..
But it will only Clean files within zip files.. If it finds a virus in
another type of compressed file, you must remove it manually.

"scan.exe /adl /secure /clean /rpterr /append /report c:\vreport.txt
/badlist c:\vbadlist.txt"


The following will scan and clean Only files found in the
c:\vbadlist.txt file.. This can make it do a quick clean if you have
already done a full scan..

"scan.exe /checklist c:\vbadlist.txt /analyze /unzip /clean /append
/report c:\vreport.txt"

One thing about the badlist scanning.. Due to the format of this text
file, files found within compressed files will not be removed by using
the badlist scanning method, as it lists them as
c:\blah\virus.zip\virus.exe. The scanner will attempt to find this by
using the direct path and you will get a file not found error.. Simply
edit the badlist.txxt file to only point to the zip file, and you
should be fine.

 

[Fidcal]

I use McAfee's command line scanner for these purposes.. If you have
McAfee installed, it's in the \Program Files\Common Files\Network
Associates\ Folder.

I use a batch file for using various scan options.. Here are some of
the command lines I use..

This will scan ALL drives on your system, Uses full heuristic
analysis, scans ALL files and compressed files, regardless of
extension, and logs a report to c:\vreport.txt, and a list of found
viruses to c:\vbadlist.txt

"scan.exe /adl /secure /rpterr /append /report c:\vreport.txt /badlist
c:\vbadlist.txt"

The following does the same as above, but also tries to clean the
infected file(s). There is one stipulation, however.. McAfee can
scan inside ZIP, LHA, PKarc, ARJ, WinACE, RAR, CAB, and CHM formats..
But it will only Clean files within zip files.. If it finds a virus in
another type of compressed file, you must remove it manually.

"scan.exe /adl /secure /clean /rpterr /append /report c:\vreport.txt
/badlist c:\vbadlist.txt"


The following will scan and clean Only files found in the
c:\vbadlist.txt file.. This can make it do a quick clean if you have
already done a full scan..

"scan.exe /checklist c:\vbadlist.txt /analyze /unzip /clean /append
/report c:\vreport.txt"

One thing about the badlist scanning.. Due to the format of this text
file, files found within compressed files will not be removed by using
the badlist scanning method, as it lists them as
c:\blah\virus.zip\virus.exe. The scanner will attempt to find this by
using the direct path and you will get a file not found error.. Simply
edit the badlist.txxt file to only point to the zip file, and you
should be fine.

Thanks. That's reasonable but not as good as presenting them
in-program for selective treatment. Anyway, I've finally decided
to buy Norton again despite its other quirks.

 

[null]

Anyway, I've finally decided
to buy Norton again despite its other quirks.

Including requiring IE What a contradiction! The antivirus requires
the virus honeypot in order to function. Oh well. Like 'ol Socrates
said as he downed another fifth of Olde Hemlock. "It's all show biz".


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg