Hi, new potential user here with a couple of questions.

To try clam, can I run it along side my current AV (Antivir PE Classic free) if I turn off Antivir's resident scanner?

Does Clam have file extension in windows explorer? Can I open windows explorer, select a file and scan it?

Thanks!

You don't have to turn off Avira Antivir's resident scanner to use ClamWin. The present version of ClamWin doesn't have a resident scanner--it only scans files on demand when you tell it to, so there is no conflict. In fact, when ClamWin scans a file , Antivir's resident scanner also kicks in, so you get two looks at a file. You probably won't notice it, and you probably need a resident scanner if you surt the Web a lot. When ClamWin goes resident, you will have to disable one of the resident scanners. There's no date set for release yet, so that will be a while.

When you install ClamWin, you can choose to integrate it with the Windows Explorer right context menu. After installation, you can find a file in Explorer, right click and have ClamWin scan it for you. It's handy for checking a file after you download it.

Regards,

Thank you Bob, that's what I needed to know. I've turned off the antivir resident anyway, as I find it way aggressive, I only really need a scanner. I'm a little concerned about scanning speed though.

One more question, when new releases of clamwin come out, can you install over the previous version, or do you have to uninstall then reinstall?

Thanks so much again.

you can install over

Another question: I just scanned my windows directory and got this error:

WARNING: Can't open file \\?\C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\EventCache\{F51FF105-795E-4086-958A-AC69B7847997}.bin, Permission denied

Anything to worry about?

Also, and I hate to knock a free program, but clam is slower than other free AVs I've tried. Maybe I need to work on filtering?
I do like how it doesn't bloat my system though.

That file is probably okay--it probably has something to do with a download from Microsoft. On most scans you usually see a few files that can't be accessed because they are either being used by the system or consist of another program that is running at scan time. I don't think you see binary files (.bin) being infected very often now. You can hit CONTROL-ALT-DELETE and see the programs/processes that are running any time you want, and you can put the file name into a Google search and learn about it. It's not a bad idea to get familiar with the files that are normally running--this might help you spot something bad when it does run.

Clam's scanning time has improved quite a bit since I started using it in July last year, and ClamWin has benefitted from that. ClamWin is limited, however, by its programming language and techniques. Version 1.0 (release date is unknown) will be pretty much equal to other antivirus programs as far as scanning. You can speed up ClamWin scans by scanning only for file types that are likely to harbour viruses. There are about 50 of them, and you can do a Google search on "dangerous file extensions" to find them and change ClamWin's configuration filter to only scan for files with those 3-4 letter extensions (*.ext). I scan the Windows directories only for those file types, and my scans take about 24 minutes. If you want to scan your entire hard drive, you can break them up into separate scans or scan a different directory each day.

Regards,

Thanks Bob. I tried a .8 version of clamwin a while ago and yes, this version is much better.

So, you're saying put the dangerous file extensions in the right hand box in the filter section? So that's all it scans?
It's a little confusing, either have a big exclude list or a big include list.

I'm sure we are all looking forward to 1.x version of clamwin.

Yes, if you configure ClamWin 's filter to scan only certain file extensions, that's what it will do when you scan directories and entire hard drives. If you can an individual file, however, it will scan any extension. ClamWin's advanced preference tab lets you set it to scan for executable files only, which might speed up scanning just a little. ClamWin also comes configured to exclude a few extensions (large non-executable file types), and it's best to leave them there.

I hope I have given Alch/Sherpya some additional time to work on version 1.0 with this answer! Alch does seem to be spending more time on the forum lately. Hmmm......

Regards,