Does ClamWin and Clam Sentinel work fine beside Avast 4.8 on a Windows 98 S.E system?

The Clam Sentinel developer, Andrea Russo, is a Win 98 user and he has also used Avast, so I think they will work okay.

I have used ClamWin/Sentinel with lots of other real-time AVs on my Win 7 machines. I suggest you exclude the ClamWin and Sentinel program folders, the ClamWin data folder (Sentinel does not have one), and the ClamWin temp scan files (clamav-*) (that's clamav followed by a dash and a star--no spaces) from Avast's scans to prevent any problems. Also exclude Avast's program folder, data folder, and signatures folder (if they are not in Avast's data folder) from Sentinel's scans. These exclusions should minimize system resources and keep each AV from scanning when the other one kicks in and also keep Avast from triggering on an occasional signature in a ClamWin temp file. I don't know what temp files Avast uses, but that's probably okay.

If you have any problems, drop Sentinel, Keep Avast, and use ClamWin as a backup scanner.

Regards,

Thanks, I take it there is a setting to exclude data? is this on the ClamWin or Sentinel or both?

You will have to manually exclude (whitelist) the data folder for ClamWin from Avast. It is C:\ProgramData\.clamwin in Windows 7. There is no data folder for Clam Sentinel.

You should not have to exclude any ClamWin or Clam Sentinel folders from each other. There is generally no need to exclude anything in ClamWin, since it is not a real-time scanner. If you scan another AV's quarantine directory with ClamWin, you should exclude that to prevent it from triggering on a quarantined file.

I have never found out where/what the Avast temp folders are, but if you exclude the Avast data folder from Sentinel, they may be there.

You may not be able to exclude the ClamWin temp files from Avast, as many AVs will not accept it. You can't exclude the entire directory because it is somewhere in Temporary Internet Files, and they may have different names. I exclude them as clamav-* when using Microsoft Security Essentials. For some other AVs, *.clamtmp or just clamtmp will work. The reason to exclude temp files is that sometimes an AV can trigger on a signature in another AV's temp file when they have a simialr signature.

All these exclusions will prevent Avast from triggering when Sentinel is active and vice versa--most of the time. However, you may occasionally have a spike when they both are active, but this should be minimal. If CPU use goes over 60% for long periods of time, you will have to drop/disable Sentinel and use only Avast for real-time, since it is the better AV.

Regards,

Thank you for that detailed info, much appreciated.