Written by:
J. W. Lee
Published in PC World Singapore (Oct '95 issue)
I referred to the article "Terminating Die Hard Viruses" released in the September issue of PCWorld Singapore, under the topic Solutions Workshop.
Your method of scanning and removing viruses using McAfee antivirus software is (1) outdated, and (2) inappropriate as insufficient switches had been applied.
Currently, the antivirus software released by McAfee is in the 2nd series, i.e. SCAN 2.X.X. The new version comes with 4 files, namely SCAN.EXE, SCAN.DAT, NAMES.DAT, CLEAN.DAT, and there is no more CLEAN.EXE. To effectively scan and remove any known viruses, simply type SCAN C: /ALL /SUB /CLEAN , where /ALL is to scan all files (in addition to .EXE and .COM files), /SUB is to scan all subdirectories, and /CLEAN is to remove all viruses found (without the names of the viruses to be spelled out as required in the 1st series of McAfee scan program). The upper memory block will also be scanned automatically, and hence, the switch /CHKHI has been removed.
On the other hand, if you are using the 1st series of McAfee antivirus software (e.g. SCAN86 ... SCAN116), which is most likely outdated by now, the necessary switches needed to scan a virus effectively is by typing SCAN C: /A /CHKHI /SUB , where /A is to scan all files, /CHKHI is to scan upper memory block (640kb to 1088Kb), and /SUB is to scan all subdirectories. And to remove any virus found, just type CLEAN [virus_name] C: /A /CHKHI /SUB .
You can download from the Internet site ftp.mcafee.com for the latest shareware version of McAfee antivirus software released.
Written by:
J. W. Lee
Published in PC World Singapore (Oct '95 issue)
Return to J W Lee's Online Library