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Old May 13th 10, 10:29 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsme.general
Dave Lee Travis Bickle
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Posts: 7
Default Is there still a free AV for ME?

Thanks for the thought, Harry. I fried the MB same as I did with the last
pc - playing with the BIOS. But this time was about a year ago and yes, a
decent MB is cheap enough but as there were a couple of specs of the
original I didn't like, I got a different one (which almost certainly
necessitates replacing other components to match - which is an excuse to
upgrade them too).

Whereas for a decade I had a VIA chipset, now I have nVidia - inc. onboard
graphics far better than the GeForce card that expired before the MB did and
mainly why I determined to get a new MB which in turn, frankly, is what
tempted me into playing with the BIOS, i.e. the risk of frying it was
acceptable and I think I was counting on it. Not only do I now have SATAII
controllers to go with the SATAII HDs that were already in there, I can run
Aero without needing a seperate card, though the RAM limit is still 2G.

The nVidia RAID is incompatible with DriveImage whereas the VIA's worked a
treat, by which I mean DI could see the drive(s) from DOS, so I'm not using
RAID any more - but being able to use SATAII data transfer more than makes
up the performance loss and the backup regime I've instigated is better for
having two seperate disks instead of two mirrored, and of course I have
twice as much disk space available (though DriveImage from DOS cannot see
beyond 137G - so you put partitions for holding stuff that doesn't need
backing up, there).

There is one fewer IDE controller, so I backed up certain stuff - such as my
mp3 collection (of a year ago), and jpegs etc - to one of the PATA drives,
zero-ed the other and removed them both (which makes room for a 2nd fan). I
lose the useful option of having XP (and/or any other OS) on a PATA drive
disabled in the BIOS. I used to turn the computer off, leave it off for a
good few minutes, turn it back on and go straight into the BIOS, enable that
PATA controller and boot to this 'hidden' OS and scan the disks in everyday
use from that. Even if I had the old HDs in there still, my DVD-RAM is PATA.
Previously I could disable one controller and leave the other enabled. Now
to have a PATA HD in there disabled by default I would have to buy another
DVD burner, though maybe that is not such a bad option (except that I'd
rather build another pc than continue upgrading this one). Currently -
though it is a limited solution - I have an encrypted XP installation on the
2nd disk.

Shane

webster72n wrote:
"Dave Lee Travis Bickle" wrote in
message ...
Apologies if I came across as unnecessarily abrasive at any point,
Harry. I've been getting the feelimg I was, though I'm too tired now
to read back through and verify that. Anyway, no, all this is on one
pc - as I suspect Noel may have said (but I'll know momentarily).
Almost all the systems I'm running lately or have run are virtual
machines. I actually tried installing some of the older ones to the
real hard drives, but they simply won't anymore! 9x was never
entirely stable on the 'this' computer - but since I rebuilt it
(after frying the MB) not even Windows 2000 will install on it!


After reading Noel's notes I was able to add 2+2 together.
And no need to apologize, we go back way too far for that.
But you frying the MB?
How in the world did you manage such a feat?
Anyway, a decent new MB isn't all that expensive, is it?
If it weren't for the big water tub between us, I might have stopped
by and help you with the repair work.
I am sure you'll get it straightened out yet yourself, so you can
install Win2000.
You've got my complete moral support.
Now I must find out who Dave Lee Travis Bickle Is or was.

Chow,

Harry.


Shane

webster72n wrote:
Hello Shane:

At the time of my posting the 'names game' didn't occur to me.
Since it does now, I shall respectfully regress and live with my
choice(s). You must have quite an assortment of pc's at your
disposal. It is always good to be in touch with you.

Cheers,

Harry.


"Dave Lee Travis Bickle" wrote in
message ...
Oh yes, forgot to add: end of 2010 is the date supplied by Alwil to
Jerry Martin as reported here a month or so ago (which I found by
searching, i.e. if I'd seen the thread previously I might have
realised Rocky T had contributed to it before informing him of what
he knew before I did). Though the question then becomes which is
better: to continue using a product that will be essentially
pointless in just over 6 months or switch now to one that could
still be getting def updates for years? With my situation it is
different in that - apart from NOD32 being arguably a lot better
than Avast! - it was paid for, so why not keep using it to the
last? Though - while the 98/ME version of NOD32 v.2 not only still
works perfectly well in Windows 95 (a quality now as rare as what
comes out of the back of a rocking horse) let alone 98 and ME - I
continue to run the NT version (of v.2) mostly to get the def
updates for use in portable installations. It is a shame that
those will end when the licence does, but it sure as home isn't
worth the price *just* to keep an updated thumb drive
installation. Stinger is not worth bothering with. I don't know
why McAfee do, let alone the humble user. Their sdat scanner either run
from DOS for
FAT or from a BartPE (which can also be run from USB) for NTFS,
can't be trusted after the recent McAfee FP debacle. It is nice to
have something other than Sysclean, but Sysclean is pretty good -
if you scan without cleaning, then interpret the results.

Oh, look at the time!

Toodle-oo!

"HRH The Example John Smith" wrote
in message ...


"webster72n" wrote in message
...


"HRH The Example John Smith" wrote
in message ...


"Rockytsquirrel" wrote in message
...
Avast 4.8 still works on ME and does update several times a
day..

Til the end of 2010, apparently. I tried it but it almost
continually popped up notifications of the new build and as it
wasn't immediately obvious how to turn that off, I uninstalled
it.

Not so sure about the end of 2010,
and I don't have the problem with those notifications anymore
since I renewed my registration.
IMHO Avast is still the best.

You haven't tried enough alternatives then, Harry. Incidentally it
also caused problems in 2 or 3 of the systems I installed it on -
on which I now have either NAV2002...or nothing. This is no longer
anything to do with the interface, as I don't give an inverted dos
about that when it is on a system I rarely use. btw I had only
recently registered it, on account of the first key I used was out
of date. Really, if you mean 'the best AV' you're seriously
deluded. Personal
preferences aside, Avast! shows the occasional good result in
tests but spends most of it's time at or maybe slightly above
mediocre - rather like AVG, which I used to swear by (as far as
free AVs go), but I was never under the illusion it was 'the
best'. While I still have a little time left on my NOD32 licence, I am
migrating to free Avira - using it here in Windows7 as I type.
Once you disable the nag screen it is pretty good (probably is
*with* the nag too if you can stand that sort of thing). I am
undecided as yet as to just how good Antivir is - though as with
all of them it varies over time anyway. Certainly these days,
though, I will go with the German product over the Czech products
any day of the week. Rather like if any version of Linux was
polished enough to stay on a primary here (I just tried Kubuntu
10.04 both on the metal and in VPC and neither stayed more than 5
minutes, failing as miserably as *buntu always does except for
the too-easily pleased) it would be the originally-German
openSUSE. Though I think Beemers and Porches are a variation on
crepe. Harumph!