Slashdot Mirror
Stand-Alone Antivirus Software?
An anonymous reader writes "I work for a company that repairs specialty devices that have an embedded Mini-ATX motherboard without a CD-ROM drive and run Windows XP Home. And while the USB flash drives we insert into them have a physical write-protect tab, we still encounter a (rather annoying) display dialog from malware/viruses to remove the write-protect so the malware can infect the flash drive. We don't remove the write-protect, obviously, but would like to offer our customers the option of removing the malware/virus without having to install any software. We would rather not install/uninstall antivirus software even for one-time use, due to various licensing issues, nor do we want to connect to the Internet to use web-based online scanners. Is there any stand-alone anti-virus/anti-malware software for Windows that can be run directly from the write-protected flash drive itself?"
12 people in a row suggested ClamWINAV... I think /. will survive 2 UBCD recommendations...
It is brilliant if your just a service tech thats paid to 'fix the machine' and can't actually do anything to 'fix the machine'
As an example: Windows XP used for photo printing boths are various 1 hour photo places. They Joe the plumber plugin a flash device and print his pictures.
They are made by SomeBigCompany, but the phamacy down the street has one and needs it repaid, so JohnTheRepairMan comes to fix it. Can't fix the fact that it loads the autorun on flash devices even though its not supposed to because SomeBigCompany says no, and if he does it anyway, SomeBigCompany not continue to consider him an 'authorized repair man'.
John however is allowed to say 'its got a virus, reimage or repair'.
John just wants a way to speed up his 'reimage/repair' calls since he isn't actually allowed to do something to fix the problem.
John wins twice. A) He spends less time on a call that he gets paid a fixed price for anyway, so more profit and more importantly B) because SomeBigCompany doesn't care about the wasted cash, John gets to continue making a living.
John doesn't want it fixed. Its not his fault. He's not allowed to fix it. He is in the position to be the customers hero and have the customer thank him while he takes money from them for something he could actually make not happen again.
From Johns perspective ... it is brilliant, and he's not even doing anything mildly wrong or immoral.
Sometimes your perspective on the problems you see here on slashdot is ... incomplete at best.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I see Antivirus 2010 on half the computers I come across, it must be a good product since everyone has it! ;)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
TFS says that they come preinstalled with the variant colloquially known as Windows XP Home.