how to use multiple antiviruses without uninstalling one when running another?

[xcoderx]

is that possible to do it? atm i am using avast pro and also wish to use bitdefender sometimes so how do i switch without having to uninstall avast. how to desable one av when wanting to use another?

[Daniel0]

AV software ties itself pretty deep into the OS, so it's not a good idea having two different kinds of AV programs installed at the same time.

[xcoderx]

so now if i want to try bitdefender do i uninstall avast first and then use the ditdefender? some dumb ass got viruses into my system with pendrive yesterday thou avast did detect 2 and i deleted but but im still not quiet satisfied and want to try the bitdefender as i heard its good. tell me the steps please daniel.

[Daniel0]

If you have confirmed that you had a virus, I would do a clean install of the OS personally.

[xcoderx]

that mean my installed softwares will have to be reinstall right? yes virus is confirmed. i got the xp home recovery cd with the laptop do i run that?

[oni-kun]

that mean my installed softwares will have to be reinstall right? yes virus is confirmed. i got the xp home recovery cd with the laptop do i run that?

 

Do the in/uninstalls in safe mode. Btw, doesn't Avast (atleast when reinstalled) run a virus scan at boot time? (before usermode kicks in, and any viruses propagate).

 

Your recovery CD will keep your files but replace your Windows folder, your documents will be in username.old etc. So that won't exactly prevent the viruses from coming back, unless you're sure to yourself they're removed.

[xcoderx]

yes when reinstall avast does a virus scan at boot time and infact after i saw the virus alert in that pendrive i run a scan and avast showed me tow viruses in system files and i deleted them with the delete option but it was not in safe more :-( im not sure if the viruses are completely deleted even thou its not detecting while scanning. i hate viruses they r soo lame :-(

[oni-kun]

yes when reinstall avast does a virus scan at boot time and infact after i saw the virus alert in that pendrive i run a scan and avast showed me tow viruses in system files and i deleted them with the delete option but it was not in safe more :-( im not sure if the viruses are completely deleted even thou its not detecting while scanning. i hate viruses they r soo lame :-(

 

Indeed they are. Well, how about formatting your pen drive in case there are any autorun or infected MBR worms still hidden within? Look through your C:\windows\ and \system32 for any out of the ordinary files, which I highly recommend checking online for before touching them.

 

Install an antimalware such as malwarebytes (free: from CNET.com) and update it as necessary, and scan.

 

Go into safemode and scan with your antivir, and make sure there are no startup files which are obviously not what you intended to start up, IE pesky spyware (Start -> Run -> 'msconfig', then go to startup tab and uncheck necessary items)

 

Blah blah. Get linux while you're at it.

[xcoderx]

the pen drive wasnt mine it was my teachers who was trying to insatll dw cs4 in my system. and yes it had some autorun in it thats why my pc got infected tho avast said no need to worry still it managed  to get in. ok about system32 im not too good at all these things im not even quoet sure how to clean install OS thou i have once used the recovery cd that i got with my laptop and it formated entire system. is that wht clean install means?

[oni-kun]

the pen drive wasnt mine it was my teachers who was trying to insatll dw cs4 in my system. and yes it had some autorun in it thats why my pc got infected tho avast said no need to worry still it managed  to get in. ok about system32 im not too good at all these things im not even quoet sure how to clean install OS thou i have once used the recovery cd that i got with my laptop and it formated entire system. is that wht clean install means?

 

Yeah, if you use the recovery disk and do a clean install then it should 'discard' your parition. You may want to delete the NTFS partition, and use the 'long' method (should be fast or long methods when reformatting during install) to get rid of all data for the optimal reformatting.

[xcoderx]

so its confirmed if i do reformating there will be nomore virus on my system anymore right? thanks soo much for the infos.

[oni-kun]

so its confirmed if i do reformating there will be nomore virus on my system anymore right? thanks soo much for the infos.

 

If no bytes are on the disk, how can viruses still be there? They can, but i'm not going to get into a discussion about multipartition worms.

[JonnoTheDev]

Personally, starting from scratch with a clean install I would view as a last resort option. If your AV software has detected and cleaned the infection, you have also installed malware detection software, your AV software is fully upto date, and you have done a complete scan with both bits of software and it is coming back as negative; then I would be OK with that. If your PC starts doing all kinds of wierd shit then format it and start again.

[jspodisus]

For resident protection, you can only have one antivirus at a time. Personally, I use AVG Free. It's not the best, but it's full-featured and doesn't require annual re-registration.

 

For on-demand scanning, you can use as many as you wish, with system resources being your only real limitation. Two of the best on-demand scanners you can get for free are BitDefender and AntiVir.

[oni-kun]

Personally, starting from scratch with a clean install I would view as a last resort option. If your AV software has detected and cleaned the infection, you have also installed malware detection software, your AV software is fully upto date, and you have done a complete scan with both bits of software and it is coming back as negative; then I would be OK with that. If your PC starts doing all kinds of wierd shit then format it and start again.

 

The 'bang the tv until it works' method!

[JonnoTheDev]

The 'bang the tv until it works' method!

dont get it.

 

All i'm saying is that if you fomat the PC, reinstall everything its gonna take some time. All running OK and then boom, you get hit with another virus or the same virus. Are you just going to keep formatting the machine each time. Hell, we have about 12 windows PCs on the office network and never had to fomat one, know why, because the antivirus software is kept bang up to date - daily. We have clients coming in with pen drives, portable hard disks, cds / dvds that they make stick into one of our machines. Next thing the antivirus has detected all kinds of shit, and straight away I will say get that away from our machines, but hey I have never had a machine damaged or had to format anything. The network is clean as a whistle. Sure there are some viruses that are so good they will get past all the best defences you have in place and I have seen that happen, but until it does happen just make sure you keep you AV upto date, security updates, etc and you should be fine.

[xcoderx]

ok i ran the bitdefender and i got warning of these

files so i sent them to quarantine. do i now delete them or its not virus im not sure if i should delete it or not guiede me.