ClamWin seems to be the only free antivirus software that is supposed to work with Win98SE.

So, I downloaded and by golly it work for several weeks, albeit very slowly (12+ hours for 4 Gb).

Then it updated from 0.96 to the newer release. Ever since then, it freezes my computer before finishing scanning. I cannot move the cursor. I usually run it at night because it takes so long, and I automatically have my monitor shut off after 30 minutes. So when I awake, and move the mouse, the monitor doesn't wake up. I have to reboot the computer. I tried setting the monitor to on all the time, and when I got up, ClamWin had stopped in its tracts and nothing on the computer worked including the mouse. I tried this several times to see if it was freezing at the same location. There was no pattern to it.

I can only reboot, and therefore I can no longer rely on it to do a complete scan of my hardrive.

I tried doing a clean uninstall, and reloaded the original 0.96 earlier release that I know worked, and it freezes too now. I checked and it looks like ClamWin automatically updated itself to the newest release, so I'm thinking that there is something wrong in the new release.

What do I do now? I won't chance going online without virus protection, because I have no way of detecting it without a working antivirus software. AVG and AVAST both have stopped supporting 98SE, and a thorough search of the internet and a couple of the tech sites like PCPitstop said that ClamWin is the only remaining antivirus software available.


It used to work on this system, I haven't changed anything. So does anybody know what I should do?

Thanks,
deltadoc

I left Windows 98 back in 2006 (God forgive me--they don't make a decent OS like that anymore). ARU uses it quite a bit, so let's see if he or Sherpya can help. In the meantime, check to see if the problem is with ClamWin's scheduler. Turn off scheduling and see if you can do a manual scan without any problems.

As for taking too long to scan, I don't think you need to scan your entire hard drive daily--maybe once a week. Most malware will be in the Windows directory/subdirectories or in the User directory (Documents and Settings). You could also set ClamWin's filters to only scan for the most "popular" extensions for malware--do a Google for "dangerous file extensions." Make sure your list includes exe, dll, tmp, sys, scr, com, pdf, inf, pif, zip, htm, png, swf, html, url, lnk, flv, ocx, js, rtf, bat, wsh, cmd, and cpl.

WinPatrol is a good little system monitor that still works with Win 98, and there is a free version (it's not real-time, but it only has a short delay until it scans). Spyware Blaster works with Win 98, I believe--it blocks some malware sites, and it blocks some exploits via kill bits, so it doesn't make heavy use of the OS. It also has some good anti-malware tools- like killing Flash, system restore, etc.

Regards,

looks like a sort of memory leak that happens only on win98, unfortunately these kind of problems are very hard to track
I'll try to make a long scan in my vm machine

Thanks guys! I only do manual scans. I did another clean uninstall of the newest release, and this time I loaded the original 0.96-0-1 and didn't allow it to upgrade itself other than the latest virus database.

Ran it again last night, and left the harddrive and monitor on all the time.

It stopped (froze) and the last and only line on the screen had to do with adobe.

I remember one other time that is exactly where it froze.

So I'm going to try your suggestions, and also try doing a clean uninstall of adobe and try another full scan.

Maybe its just a matter of that I don't have more than 31mb left on the active drive and it freezes because it doesn't have any space left. I've used Evidence Eliminator (a software that I love!)
and there are usually 14-1600+ clamwin.tmp files that it gets rid of, even after only one attempt to scan. If it is creating that many .tmp files on the active drive that may be why there's no space left to keep running.

I know a little about the OS, but I'm certainly no expert like you guys.

So thanks again.

Hope to hear some more feedback after you try running a full scan.

deltadoc

I am also trying to use Clamwin because it seems to be the only truly free antivirus which is supposed to run under Win98SE. Other "free" antivirus programs seem to be trial versions, the "full" paid version of which sometimes do not run without an XP upgrade. But if one upgrades to XP (or 7), there is always Windows Security Essentials, direct from Microsoft for free, which does a fairly good job in my experience. Since Microsoft is trying to kill Win98, they do not have a version for it.

My problem is that, although Clamwin installs under Win98SE, it seems to go into an endless loop when downloading the update. I can't find any problem with the Win98SE installation - all avalable updates are installed. Does anyone have any suggestions, aside from abandoning the attempt?

The updates sometimes are a little "difficult." Clam has a lot of mirrors, and I understand they must be synchronized to work properly. For me, the update usually completes after a while. I have had them time out on me occasionally, so the update will eventually stop if it can't complete. If there is a problem, I will wait for 30 minutes or so and then try again, etc. I don't recall ever having to do this more than a couple of times for an update. Seems like you get a message at the end of an unsuccessful attempt with a link for information if there is a real problem.

Regards,

GuitarBob-

Thanks for the rapid response. Maybe it is all smoke and mirrors after all!

How long do you have to wait? After getting the update screen, I have let it run for several hours before giving up. I have also tried reloading Clamwin, shutting off all startup in msconfig, etc. no difference.

The machine does not "freeze". The little window with the title message "ClamWin Free Antivirus: Downloading Update" stays up there (at least until I get impatient and click the upper-right X), with the eye-candy animation (the world dropping a purple star-face into a computer) going unabated. Wish they would improve the download procedure rather than spend time on the theatrics. There is never any error message, at least none before I relent and terminate the process.

How long should I wait for that error message you mention? How many hours? Days? This machine is intended for the use of an elderly fellow who may not have the patience of Job. Or of a nerd like yours truly.

Frankly, I think there is a bug somewhere. Either in his system or in ClamWin. I can't find it in the system, that is why I am posting this before giving up on ClamWin entirely.

The error messages I get sometimes are after the ClamWin download screen fillls up- with junk-maybe the better part of a minute. Much longer than that--there's a problem. In this case, it seems to be a real problem. It may be something in your configuration or perhaps your firewall is blocking the download. or maybe you are not contacting the internet directly. I haven't heard anything like this from other heavy Win 98 ClamWin users.

See if you can do a manual download. Below is some help from the FAQ page:

Where can I manually download virus definition files from?
You can get the virus definitions without clamwin via https://
https://database.clamav.net/main.cvd
https://database.clamav.net/daily.cvd
Then copy the downloaded main.cvd and daily.cvd to your database location which is specified in the ClamWin Preferences, File Locations tab. The default database location is: "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\.clamwin\db

Please get back here with results or for more help.

Regards,

Somehow this topic got off track. I've never had a problem with downloading the virus update files or the updated version or installation.

My trouble is that while doing a scan of the harddrive, it freezes the computer up, i get no error messages, it just stops and nothing works at all.

I have to reboot the computer to get it back in working shape without a report or results of any kind of a completed virus scan from ClamWin. Either with 0.96-0-1 or the 0.96-0-1-0.96.0.1 upgrade.

Please help me.

Thanks,
deltadoc

Delta, Sherpya was going to run Win98 in his virtual machine. I would wait for him to get back.

Sorry the thread got off track. We should have made another one for the 2nd poster.

Regards,

Sorry about being "off track" for asking about failure to complete Clamwin download under W98se. I don't understand the rules. Does every problem with W98/Clamwin require a new thread? How does anybody keep track of all the threads?

Don't worry, deltadoc - I will not distract this thread further. I am giving up on Clamwin as a general solution to the free antivirus problem for W98 - there doesn't seem to be any authoritative answers here to what should be rather simple problems. Thanks for trying, folks - and good luck with deltadoc's problem. Bye.

Out of desperation, tried the newest 0.96.1 version. Got a little further than before, but it still froze up the computer. This time while it was in Windows/cache/adobe.

SO, since I clean uninstalled adobe but missed these two files (6.01 and 6.02), I deleted those, ran Evidence Eliminator to clean up all .tmp files and such, and am going to try one more time.

If that doesn't work, I give up!

Unless someone else has an idea what's going on. It used to work, just can't imagine what's changed since then!

tx,
deltadoc