Hi rogerjan,

Please tell us:

• Which version of Avast you have installed on Win98 (right click the Avast icon in the system tray and select About Avast).

• Your basic Win98 system information: version number (like 4.10.1998), your processor information, and the amount of RAM installed. You can find this information by right clicking My Computer on the Win98 desktop and selecting Properties > General tab.

Thanks,
Lipper

What was on there (before I uninstalled it about an hour before your mail) was, I believe, version 4.8.
In fact, the W98 details are exactly as your example: 4.10.1998.
The PC has a Pentium II with 512 MB of RAM.
I tried Clamwin again after removing Avast, and after running Scandisk, along with one or two spyware / malware utilities. Nothing found and no change: when I respond to the update reminder request the panel appears to show the download is supposedly taking place, but the channel activity light on the Linksys doesn't show any activity, and the process never completes.
Thanks for your continued interest!

Lipper pointed out that I gave the wrong address for the Hosts file on Win 98. It is c:\windows\Hosts there.

Regards,

I am not sure you did, Guitar Bob: as there is no directory on the 98 machine called C:\windows\hosts.

Some further information: I downloaded Clamwin to the XP machine and all works as it should. Updates, scans, the works. However, I did not realize that the scanner panel listed the items being scanned (obvious and common as that is) and so did not report that the Clamwin scanner on W98 is also maloperating. It shows scanning animation, but no files are shown as being scanned. Recall that I have installed the latest version on the W98 machine, then uninstalled it and installed an earlier version, and then uninstalled that and re-installed the latest version. None of those instals behaved differently than the above description. Hope that helps in some way.

Can you do a manual scan with ClamWin on Win 98 via the Windows Explorer right mouse click?

Regards,

No. There is no activity when I invoke Clamwing like that, except for a brief flash of a lozenge shaped, white, but blank, box in the lower right corner of the screen. Perhaps lasting for a second.

• 4.10.1998 is Win98 First Edition and should run fine with ClamWin. I have personally used 4.10.1998 with ClamWin .96.1.

• Avast 4.8 is appropriate for Win98.

• Pentium II may be a little too slow for Avast, but should work with ClamWin.

• 512 MB RAM is more than adequate.

You stated that C:\Windows\Hosts doesn't exist on your system. That would be shocking news. Try searching your Win98 OS drive for "Hosts". I think you will find it at that location.

Which spyware / malware utilities did you run?

My conclusion at this point is that your operating system needs some attention, maybe a rebuild would be in order. Then, follow my previously posted link to MSFN to learn about upgrading Win98FE to a more usable, stable system. I have successfully upgraded my 98FE to 4.10.2222, which is comparable to SE.

Regards,
Lipper

PS You still need to run the CA uninstaller, and now the Avast uninstaller which you will find on the vendors' web sites.

Lipper: I stand corrected: there is a Hosts file. (As no extension was mentioned, I was expecting to find a folder called C:\Windows\Hosts). I am not sure what the question was regarding that file. As the file doesn't appear to open with any program I have, I can't see what is contained inside.
I checked the link you provided for the V96.2 versus V96.2.1 (which appears to be the source of a DLL incompatibility problem. From that thread, I can't tell whether the matter was completely put to rest, but as that was 2010 and pre-V.97, perhaps it was incorporated?
If not, might it be worth a try, if it's possible to get a copy of the .96 version that existed before the .96.1 release, is to drop back to the time before those affected started having DLL proglems?
Assuming the problem is actually being caused by remnants of a previous antivirus program - CA and Avast - are you saying these companies both have uninstal utilities that can be invoked to remove even remnants left in the registry files by the MS Add / Remove utility, without there being an indentifiable antivirus program left on the machine? The CA people would have to help with theirs, as stated, but perhaps the easiest way to handle Avast is to reinstal the program so that I can uninstal it with their utility?
Also, to confirm: I installed Clamwin v .97 on the XP machine (it runs successfully) and copied the DB files over to the W98 machine. There is no change. I also looked to see that all files in the various other Clamwin folders appear to be the same in both PC's, and they do. I did not copy them all over from new to old PC.
Thanks!

You can opent the Hosts file with Notepad or similar. I just threw that out to see if maybe a virus had prevented you from updating by resvolving AV updates to the local machine address. However, like Lipper, I think the problem is the operating system. Here is a page where you can get old versions of ClamWin at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/clamwin/files/clamwin/ on the web. A few users with problems had gone back to version .96, but I thought it had been fixed with the new version of ClamWin.

Regards,

Thanks GuitarBob. Did the change to .96, to no avail. Which... changed nothing; still appears to be updating the DB when it isn't; still appears to be scanning, when it isn't.
If nothing else, at least we know the problem is not vesion related.
To anwer an earlier question, I have Spywareblaster on that machine, and I have also run Spybot. Nothing reported.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can try.
Thanks!

Hello rogerjan,



Yes. Avast's Uninstall Utility is at: https://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility. No need to re-install Avast, the uninstaller will still do it's job.

For CA, you can call the toll free number I previously posted.

Also, please provide the following information: Open My Computer from the XP desktop. Right click your OS drive (usually C) and select Properties. Tell what is shown next to File system:. It will either be NTFS, FAT32, or FAT. Then, do the same from the 98 desktop.

A last ditch effort: Download Hijack This to the 98 system from https://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/hijackthis/HijackThis.exe
This program doesn't install, only runs from location. Create a new folder in My Documents and cut or copy/paste the .exe there. Run the program and select Do a system scan and save a logfile. It may take a minute or two to scan your system, then a Notepad file should open automatically. If it doesn't, manually open the hijackthis.log file in that same folder with Notepad. Copy and paste the contents to a post in this topic.

Lipper

Understood. Will advise results. Have Hijack on the XP but not the 98. Somewhat surprised that that (or anything program, these days) will run on W98)!
I can tell you right away that both machines are NTFS.
Thanks

With some exceptions, anything that does not have to be installed has a good possibility of running okay on Win 98 (or any other version of Windows). Try Spyware Blaser, and Normal Malware Cleaner.

Regards,

Are you sure? AFAIK, the Win98 bootloader won't run on NTFS. The bootloader files must be separated from 98 on their own FAT32 partition. Do you know what was modified?