Run AVG from a CD?

[jch]

Can AVG be run from a CD or does it have to be installed? I'd like to use
it as a portable anti-virus software and run it from a CD on client PCs.
That is, client PCs I need to test and clean up. If I can't use AVG for this
purpose are there any good recommendations?

If I can't run AVG from a CD can I temporarily install it with my serial
number and run it on the target machine?

Same questions for Ad-Aware. Thanks.

 

[Shane]

Can AVG be run from a CD or does it have to be installed? I'd like to use

I imagine the DOS component - equivalent to the Rescue Disks - can. But not
the Windows program. And not any of it if you mean as a bootable cd
accessing an NTFS drive.

it as a portable anti-virus software and run it from a CD on client PCs.
That is, client PCs I need to test and clean up. If I can't use AVG for this
purpose are there any good recommendations?

NAV, BitDefender, Avast! Bart cd, Knoppix. Not so much recommendations as
limited options.

I run five DOS scanners from a bootable, updatable cd. But can't scan NTFS,
of course.

If I can't run AVG from a CD can I temporarily install it with my serial
number and run it on the target machine?

Yes. Better do it all in Safe Mode though.

Same questions for Ad-Aware. Thanks.

Same answer except Ad-aware doesn't need a serial no.

I do also keep the installation files for those two - and several other
security products, eg Spybot S&D, trials for other AV progs, various
firewalls, Mcafee Stinger and Trend Micro Sysclean, etc etc - on the
aforementioned DOS scanner cd for running/installing where appropriate.


Shane

 

[Dave English]

I imagine the DOS component - equivalent to the Rescue Disks - can. But not
the Windows program. And not any of it if you mean as a bootable cd
accessing an NTFS drive.


NAV, BitDefender, Avast! Bart cd, Knoppix. Not so much recommendations as
limited options.

I run five DOS scanners from a bootable, updatable cd.

But can't scan NTFS,
of course.

....

I would have thought that Knoppix could read NTFS, good enough for
scanning. It just cannot write it, to make a repair.

Regards

 

[Shane]

...

I would have thought that Knoppix could read NTFS, good enough for
scanning. It just cannot write it, to make a repair.

Dave, I didn't say it couldn't.

Shane

 

[Vanguardx]

Dave, I didn't say it couldn't.

Shane

Shane, yes, you did say it couldn't. "But can't scan NTFS, of course."
That was your statement.

Can't you use the freeware version of NTFSDOS
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml)? For
example, NTFSDOS is included on the Ultimate Boot CD
(http://www.ultimatebootcd.com) and which also has freebie F-Prot and
McAfee scanners, so they must've figured NTFSDOS was usable enough to do
AV scans on NTFS partitions. Although the manual for AVG says, "The
rescue disk can be used for the OS Windows 9x/ME only", maybe using the
freeware read-only NTFSDOS would still let you do the scan (because you
certainly wouldn't want it attempting a repair under NTFS).

Of course, I have to wonder how you can do a virus signature update to
read-only media (even if it were CD-R[W] media) without the victim host
having a CD-RW drive, CD burning software, and an Internet connection.
The one on the Ultimate Boot CD is already dated (July 2004).

 

[Shane]

Shane, yes, you did say it couldn't. "But can't scan NTFS, of course."
That was your statement.

No, "I run five DOS scanners from a bootable, updatable cd. But can't scan
NTFS,
of course" was my statement. It was in a separate paragraph. It is also
obvious, coming immediately behind a sentence about DOS scanners.

Can't you use the freeware version of NTFSDOS
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml)? For
example, NTFSDOS is included on the Ultimate Boot CD
(http://www.ultimatebootcd.com) and which also has freebie F-Prot and
McAfee scanners, so they must've figured NTFSDOS was usable enough to do
AV scans on NTFS partitions. Although the manual for AVG says, "The
rescue disk can be used for the OS Windows 9x/ME only", maybe using the
freeware read-only NTFSDOS would still let you do the scan (because you
certainly wouldn't want it attempting a repair under NTFS).

Of course, I have to wonder how you can do a virus signature update to
read-only media (even if it were CD-R[W] media) without the victim host
having a CD-RW drive, CD burning software, and an Internet connection.
The one on the Ultimate Boot CD is already dated (July 2004).

Really you'd want to do the update on a non-suspect PC, so presumably on
one's own before setting out - or on one's laptop. However, you can't do it
if the session is closed, thus a cd from a downloaded iso is unlikely to be
updatable. If you burn your own and don't close the session, you can - at
least with Nero - continue burning to it until the cdr is full.


Shane

 

[xmp]

Can't you use the freeware version of NTFSDOS
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml)? For
example, NTFSDOS is included on the Ultimate Boot CD
(http://www.ultimatebootcd.com) and which also has freebie F-Prot and
McAfee scanners, so they must've figured NTFSDOS was usable enough to do
AV scans on NTFS partitions.

I think PE Builder solves a lot of the problems. I suspect there will
be more live CD's in the future, as Avast already offers one.

Linux with the captive driver would be another option.
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
Then there's the issue of finding a good linux scanner. Running a
scanner under WINE, Winex, Crossover, or DOS emulator might also work.

michael

 

[Vanguardx]

"Shane" <[email protected]>
wrote in

Really you'd want to do the update on a non-suspect PC, so presumably
on one's own before setting out - or on one's laptop. However, you
can't do it if the session is closed, thus a cd from a downloaded iso
is unlikely to be updatable. If you burn your own and don't close the
session, you can - at least with Nero - continue burning to it until
the cdr is full.

Something for me to experiment with. Hopefully AVG (or NOD32 or
whatever) can run without writing so you can run it from the bootable
CD. Then, as you say, by using CD-R[W] you could have it run its update
check to update its signature files on the recordable media. Sounds
doable.

Which 5 AV DOS scanners do you use? McAfee's Stinger only seems to
cover a specific subset of viruses.

 

[Shane]

Really you'd want to do the update on a non-suspect PC, so presumably

on one's own before setting out - or on one's laptop. However, you
can't do it if the session is closed, thus a cd from a downloaded iso
is unlikely to be updatable. If you burn your own and don't close the
session, you can - at least with Nero - continue burning to it until
the cdr is full.

Something for me to experiment with. Hopefully AVG (or NOD32 or
whatever) can run without writing so you can run it from the bootable
CD. Then, as you say, by using CD-R[W] you could have it run its update
check to update its signature files on the recordable media. Sounds
doable.

Which 5 AV DOS scanners do you use? McAfee's Stinger only seems to
cover a specific subset of viruses.

KAVDOS32 (3.0.135), F-Prot for DOS, McAfee Virusscan (being the files
extracted from the SDAT download), Trend Micro's PCSCAN (The DOS files from
PC-Cillin are added to an Sysclean folder - and use the same defs), and
NAVDX (from NAV2001, copied over the extracted NAVC files - available from
ftp.symantec.com - and updated by the Intelligent Updater).

When the cd boots a 30M ramdrive is created. Each scanner is run by a batch
file which extracts the zipped scanner to a folder on the ramdrive and runs
it from there - so no problem with running from a read-only medium. I have a
log written to C: - though it's all customisable of course. You can read the
log from DOS, you can copy it to a floppy if a floppy drive exists. You can
read it from Windows assuming you can boot the hd. At the end of each scan
the AV folder on the ramdrive is deleted.

As for the updating, I make an updated zip of each scanner, so I'm updating
the entire program, not just the defs. This is because burning the AV
folders uncompressed, file names were being changed, eg a hyphen became an
underscore, so the batches wouldn't work. I'm not absolutely sure why that
happens, but burning them as zips and decompressing to the ramdrive gets
round it and I don't think disc space is so critical as to be worth
investigating why.

Shane