Problems with F-Prot for DOS

Hi,
I downloaded the free F-prot for DOS on-demand scanner. When I ran the program, it said that I have to run it with a /NoFLoppy command line. This was because I dont have a floppy drive on my laptop.

What can I do to set the problem riight? I want to use this product as I heard its a good backup scanner.

Help will be appreciated,

Abhishek

 

Abhishek,

Do you have a floppy on your laptop? If not, just use the command line switch as indicated. I don't have F-Prot for DOS on my system, but I assume that you would enter (minus the quotation marks) "f-prot /NOFLOPPY" instead of "f-prot" in the MS-DOS window.

Blue

 

I do not have a floppy drive.I am simply unable to get it working. When I click on the main .exe file, I get that message.

Can you give me detailed instructions on how to use it?

Sorry for the trouble

Regards,
Abhishek

 

Abhishek,

The easiest thing to do is probably just create a shortcut and edit that command line.

If you already have a shortcut on your desktop, ignore the next step

Launch Explorer. Navigate to the directory where you've placed F-Prot, if you haven't placed it in its own folder yet, please do so. An example would be C:\Program Files\F-Prot. Copy all the files that were contained in the zip file to this location if you've just created this location.

Right-click and drag F-Prot.exe to the Desktop. When you release the mouse button, select Create Shortcut Here. This should create a DOS shortcut on you Desktop entitled Shortcut to F-Prot. I usually edit out the "Shortcut to".

Right-click the Shortcut icon and select Properties. Select the Program tab. In the box entitled Cmd line, add /NOFLOPPY after fullpath\F-PROT.EXE where fullpath is whatever pathname is used on your machine. Make sure there is a space between these two pieces of text. Select OK.

That should be it. Double click on the icon and see if it works.

Blue

 

Take a look here;
http://qqsoftware.xs4all.nl/fprot/F-PROT.htm
http://www.claymania.com/rate-fprot.html

However, this DOS scanner was primarily designed for non-NT systems.

Therefore, if you are using WIN2000/XP you may need to go to http://www.sysinternals.com. Here, they offer a free tool which allows access to NTFS files from MS DOS.

Command-line switches here; http://www.claymania.com/COMMAND.TXT

Hopefully, Blue's instructions will work.

If not, you may however, find 'easier' to set-up back-up AV scanners. BitDefender?

Also consider only using one of the on-line AV scanners as your back-up and layer your Avast AV with a free on-demand AT scanner.

 

BlackCat,

Thanks for your suggestions. I am contemplating Bitdefender Free as my backup scanner.

You mentioned free Anti-Trojan software. Can you name some for me?
I know of A2 and Ewido. Which is the better one?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

Abhishek,

You can get a sense of what's available and used by a number of folks here.

Blue

 

Did you manage to get F-Prot to work for you with Blue's instructions. Your response may help other members in the future. Yes, BitDefender is supposed to be a very good back-up scanner

I use both. At the present time, I would say Ewido is the better, polished product of the two. But since they are both free why not download and install both and see which one you prefer.

 

Nope, I couldnt get the F-prot working with Blue's Instructions. I thus decided to go for Bitdefender free which is pretty easy to handle.

Thanks for the advice on AT.

You have been a great help this evening.

Warmest Regards,
Abhishek

 

Thanks for reporting back, Abhishek.

Hope everything goes well.

 

Strange. Just to satisfy my curiousity, I downloaded F-Prot/DOS and went through the steps. No problem and it's on an NTFS volume on XP/SP2. Don't think I missed any steps.

Blue

 

Hmmmmmmm,

Maybe Abhishek did not follow all your steps or he moved swiftly on to BitDefender

But Blue, if F-Prot does scan on the NTFS volume, does it appear to scan as many files as it should?

 

Good question Blackcat, I just started it up and then cut it off. Quick answer - no, not by any stretch of the imagination. Doesn't seem to be a real rhyme or reason to it either.

An appropriate free or on-line scanner option is clearly the best course of action.

Blue

 

Apparently F-Prot for DOS cannot read many of the files on an NTFS system, even if you enable support for short filenames. Therefore you cannot make a full scan without some sort of external help.

One possible solution here; http://forum.gladiator-antivirus.com/index.php?showtopic=19833