Okay, sorry we couldn't do much. Look into Norman Malware Cleaner. It works with Win 98 and almost anything. It does not need to be installed--just download to desktop and do a manual on-demand scan with it. Download it a couple of times each week so you will have the latest updates--they should be good for 2/3 days. It does a good quick scan but can do a thorough scan if you want.

Regards,

Will do. Thanks. It seems that almost no malware / spyware programs will run on 98 any more, except SPyBot and Spyware Blaster that I already have. Malwarebytes doesn't claim to run and even really old versions don't. Also, Super AntiSPyware with a version that was supposed to work on 98 also doesn't. Obviously there is a big penalty to be paid for using an obsolete OS! I tend to agree with you, in that something of a viral or spy nature is causing the Clamwin, and perhaps other problems. One thing I have tried successfully is to download an installer to the XP machine and Syncback it over to the 98, to get around the no-download issue. I'll check out Norman.

Best of luck to you, rogerjan.

Cheers, Lipper. BTW Norman won't run either, and reports a device not working error, as I saw before. I am reading the various mind-numbing MS articles on that error and, should this ever get resolved, I'll be back in touch.

I updated an older version on Windows ME & it would no longer update.

I may have found the cause.

Manually running freshclam, after making a suitable freshclam.conf, it still just sat there.

The fix was to run freshclam --no-dns.

Then it runs perfectly.

It looks like it is unable to resolve the dns txt records in pre XP windows versions.

There is no way to add no-dns intothe freshclam.conf, so a work around would be to schedule the update manually.

That is good to know, Mark--thanks. Do you reckon you could schedule an automatic update via Task Scheduler?

Regards,

Hi Mark 1, thanks for posting. As GuitarBob may remember from other posts of mine, I have never used the auto update or scanner features of ClamWin. In fact, ClamTray is disabled from Windows start up on my Win98 system to hasten start up and reduce resources. So, I tested auto update for the first time and it appears to work fine (two hourly auto updates).

--------------------------------------
ClamAV update process started at Sat Jul 09 17:05:13 2011
main.cvd is up to date (version: 53, sigs: 846214, f-level: 53, builder: sven)
Downloading daily-13303.cdiff [100%]
daily.cld updated (version: 13303, sigs: 144469, f-level: 60, builder: guitar)
bytecode.cld is up to date (version: 143, sigs: 40, f-level: 60, builder: edwin)
Database updated (990723 signatures) from database.clamav.net (IP: 194.47.250.218)

--------------------------------------
ClamAV update process started at Sat Jul 09 18:00:02 2011
main.cvd is up to date (version: 53, sigs: 846214, f-level: 53, builder: sven)
daily.cld is up to date (version: 13303, sigs: 144469, f-level: 60, builder: guitar)
bytecode.cld is up to date (version: 143, sigs: 40, f-level: 60, builder: edwin)



Before and after the first auto update file hashes (MD5) for corresponding database files:

95a81bae7de3d19ea89edb05a0d7e0f7 bytecode.cld
95a81bae7de3d19ea89edb05a0d7e0f7

bef4318d0234abc890bff8dfd950f763 daily.cld
f30d2b960cadbfadce064536850a6b89

99c21c47952b6740d4ff03021a7c968a main.cvd
99c21c47952b6740d4ff03021a7c968a

72d3377e44645d303d90bb85507fe5e4 mirrors.dat
3fe78e9c92c72a3778075a44daf9e284


There are still more questions than answers:

• Is this a WinME issue?

• I have KernelEx 4.5.1 installed, which even at default values applies a compatibility mode to all executables. How much of a role does this play?

• If DNS resolving is related, then it would make sense that the DNS service used may have an impact. I use Comodo Secure DNS (156.154.70.22, 156.154.71.22), apparently without issue.

• For an auto update ClamWin calls database.clamav.net. For a manual update does ClamWin call the same address, or use direct IPs instead?

This is becoming very interesting...

Lipper

Really like ur post thanks for sharing such a helpful material.......................