F-PROT for DOS on demand only? & more ?s

I downloaded F-PROT for DOS. I also downloaded & installed Tech-Protect Virus Protection System, which is a discontinued GUI for F-PROT for DOS. Also downloaded & installed Overself Research Anti-Virus Definitions Updater for F-PROT for DOS Version 2.61. These are all freeware for the home user.

OK the questions. I've looked around on all 3 mentioned sites below & here at Wilders & the net. Is F-PROT for DOS just an on demand scanner & not resident? That's what I thought. But in the app Tech-Protect, theres an option to Enable Tech-Protect Monitor. The Tech-Protect Monitor seems to add real-time or resident functionality to F-PROT for DOS. Does this really add real-time or resident functionality to F-PROT for DOS? Given the explaination of Tech-Protect discontinuing their app. Is it possible & or wise to use as one's only AV? The footprint is very small. I'm confused & would like some insight from the experts here. Thanks.

http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/dos/
F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is FREE for use by home users on personal workstations
Combining the long experience with the latest technology F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is the ideal second defence antivirus protection. Our basic product, the DOS all-purpose antivirus detection and disinfection software.
The F-Prot Antivirus for DOS shareware package has been available for downloading for 10 years as F-Prot for DOS, and has proven to be one of the most efficient and popular antivirus programs in the market. Our highly user-friendly license terms and low prices have made F-Prot Antivirus for DOS immensely popular among professional computer users as well as private users for their home PCs worldwide. Our users have come to rely on the DOS version to keep their valuable data safe and their workstations virus-free.
The virus scanner can be used on most computer operating systems used today, and can detect and disinfect all known boot sector viruses, file or program viruses as well as macro viruses, Trojans and other irritating and destructive programs.
F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is the perfect tool for all users, both professional and private. It is easy to use, with a simple yet practical interface that offers great flexibility for the user, but can be run in command-line mode as well. The user can scan floppy disks, local hard drives or network drives as well as individual folders and files. The software can be used on private home computers, on the individual workstation or on a whole network.
Among features included in F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is an effective heuristic scanner to scan for new viruses and suspicious files. F-Prot Antivirus will scan inside compressed files, as well as in Word documents and Excel workbooks.


http://www.tech-pro.net/techprotect.html
Tech-Pro's own Tech-Protect virus protection system, which used F-Prot for Dos as a virus scanning engine, is no longer available.
We were receiving an increasing number of reports of problems with F-Prot for Dos. F-Prot's developers Frisk Software International have never supported the use of F-Prot for DOS on Windows NT-based systems (including Windows XP) and so these problems are not solvable - they were caused by trying to use F-Prot for DOS to do something it was never designed to do. It cannot handle long paths or certain filenames that may occur on systems that use the NTFS file system, and it cannot scan executables that use the new Windows .NET platform.
We felt that we were doing a disservice to ourselves, Frisk Software and our users by continuing to offer this product. Accordingly, Tech-Protect has been discontinued and is no longer supported.
Existing users, who are happy to continue to use Tech-Protect despite its shortcomings and need to reinstall it, may download the last released version of Tech-Protect.


http://www.overselfresearch.com/software/downloads/avdefsupdaterfprotdos/
Do you use F-PROT for DOS or plan to use it in an emergency situation? If yes, you need it to have the latest updates, and may be interested in the following free Windows utility (compatible with all 32-bit Windows versions, including the first version of Windows 95). It's AV Defs Updater for F-PROT for DOS, an F-PROT updater / update utility, that renews your F-PROT for DOS antivirus definitions in the background and enables the automated creation of a set of emergency diskettes allowing you to perform a clean boot and check for viruses. Your existing settings in F-PROT for DOS are transferred to the diskette copy. A quick procedure only for updating of the diskettes holding the antivirus definitions, or only the creation of a universal, general-purpose bootable DOS disk (thanks to the excellent FreeDOS Project) is provided. The DOS bootdisk can be created on ANY version of Windows. Online help (context-sensitive) is included. For installation instructions and considerations, please refer to the enclosed README. The installation or upgrade from an older version is easy and automatic.

 

F-Prot is an on-demand scanner for DOS and as such, im not certain if it works on WinXP or if it can scan NTFS drives. even if Tech-Protect could somehow make it resident, i wouldnt depend on it, especially since it discontinued.

 

From Frisk's own web-site;

"Combining the long experience with the latest technology F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is the ideal second defence antivirus protection."

Overall, it is a good backup scanner on FAT, but not NTFS. This is because it cannot properly read long directory and file names, and therefore completing full scans are difficult.

Although some people have reported no problems using it on Windows XP with NTFS formatted partitions, it has problems in removing any malware found.

Therefore, it maybe be better using F-Prot for DOS on XP just to check individual files, such as downloaded ones and attachments.

Better free alternatives include BitDefender, Dr Web's CureIT, Avast and AntiVir.

 

I guess I just wanted it to work. The footprint when active is less than 25% of my current resident AV NOD32. Oh well I guess just wishful thinking. Or I can finally go backwards & use this on an 98SE based partition or HDD. Any other thoughts on this topic folks? Thanks btw.

 

F-Prot for DOS will scan all directories on an NTFS drive that was mounted with an appropriate driver, when run under Windows 9x / Me. You can download a driver that enables read access from NTFS partitions even under plain DOS. Take a look here.

However, it will miss directories when run under W2K or XP, regardless of whether the file system is FAT32 or NTFS!

Therefore, Frisk recommend that the Command-Line Scanner (fpcmd.exe) should be used instead of the normal DOS scanner with NT-based operating systems. This is part of the F-Prot for Windows package.

Just import FPCMD.EXE from the Windows version and use it instead of F-Prot.exe. But you would have to purchase the F-Prot for Windows version for long term use.

Other free DOS scanners are shown here and McAfee also has a good DOS scanner. But whether these scanners have the same problems with XP I do not know!!