AVDisk 8.1l =========== System requirements: - 80386 or better processor - MS-DOS 4 or better - Pkzip 2.5 or better and Pkunzip, both for DOS (http://www.pkware.com) 1. The purpose of this program ------------------------------ AVDisk will help you create a set of rescue disks. Booting from clean rescue disks is necessary when your computer becomes infected with a memory resident virus. By booting from a floppy, the virus won't be activated and therefore won't be able to install itself in memory where it could otherwise interfere with the scanning and cleaning process. Please note that no virus scanner is 100% fail-safe, no matter how diligently you update it and regardless of what the scanner manufacturer tells you. It is of paramount importance that you practice what is called "safe hex", i.e. that you follow a set of safe computing rules. The importance of safe hex cannot be stressed enough. Competent and free information about viruses and virus protection can be found here: http://claymania.com/nav-map.html 2. What is on the rescue disks? ------------------------------- One of the disks contains the DOS operating system. One or more additional floopy disks contain the DOS version of an anti-virus program. Currently, the following anti-virus programs are supported: - F-Prot (http://www.complex.is) - AVPDOS32 (http://www.avp.ch) - McAfee ScanPM (http://www.mcafee.com) - ESET NOD32 (http://www.nod32.com.au) - EZ Antivirus (formerly known as Inoculate IT PE) (http://www.my-etrust.com) (The DOS program is part of the Win9x/NT/2000 download) - Grisoft AVG (http://www.grisoft.com) (The DOS program is part of the Win9x download) - Dr. Web (http://www.sald.com) - Trend Micro PC-Cillin (http://www.trend.com) (The DOS program is part of the Win9x download) - Sophos Anti-Virus (Sophos Sweep) (http://www.sophos.co.uk) Support for AVPLite has been taken out as of v8.1 due to memory and scanning limitations and the fact that AVPLite is not developed anymore. Windows anti-virus programs are not supported because it's not possible to boot Windows from a floppy. 3. Contents of the AVDisk zip file and safety measures ------------------------------------------------------ The AVDisk archive should contain the following files. Name purpose ------------ ------------------------------------------------------ 2FLOPPY.ZIP contains files for the bootdisk AVDISK.DEF AVDisk configuration file AVDISK.EXE main AVDisk executable, sets up disks AVDISK.TXT this readme file INSTALL.EXE AVDisk installation program LANGUAGE.RES language resources for AVDisk QMS.EXE scans memory for viruses QMS.INI keyfile for QMS.EXE SETUP.BAT controls setup process If a file is missing, if there were additional files in the archive, if one of the programs reports that it has been modified or if some files seem suspicious to you, do NOT use the program any further. Instead, send us the complete archive and indicate the download date and exact download location. Please do NOT send us the complete archive if you simply discover a bug in any of the programs. A bug report suffices. See section 6, "Reporting a bug" 4. Creating rescue disks ------------------------ It is important that you create the rescue disks on a clean computer; i.e. not the one which is infected. To create rescue disks, you should run the setup.bat file by entering its name at the DOS prompt, followed by [Enter]. You can do this in a DOS box under Windows. 4.1 Memory scan --------------- First, a memory scan will be performed to ensure that no virus is lurking in memory. If the program finds a virus, don't panic! Create the rescue disks on a clean computer and then scan the infected computer. 4.2 Installation ---------------- If the memory scan completes successfully, an installation program will be executed. This programs searches your computer for supported anti-virus programs and presents a menu that allows you to choose which anti-virus program you wish to use. It does the same for the necessary Pkzip/Pkunzip utilities. It will then create a subdirectory and copy all necessary files to that subdirectory. Eventually it will launch the actual AVDisk program. Note that you can do all of the above manually. For that you need to create a subdirectory named avdisk in the directory that contains the anti-virus program you wish to use. Copy all files from the AVDisk package as well as pkzip and pkunzip to that subdirectory. Then run avdisk.exe. 4.3 Creating the disks ---------------------- Under normal circumstances, AVDisk will be invoked automatically by the setup program and should be able to create the rescue disk set on its own. Just follow the on-screen instructions guiding you through the creation process. However, in some cases it might be necessary to launch avdisk.exe manually. One of these situations might be the use of a non-natively supported operating system. AVDisk can only show its full functionality under operating systems which allow creation of pure DOS bootdisks, i.e. Win9x systems. As Windows NT/2000/ME do not provide this possibility, AVDisk will only be able to update existing disks under these systems, but not to create new sets. If your computer runs on one of the aforementioned systems, you will have to start AVDisk from the command line specifying at least the parameters /nocheck and /updateonly (see below) to make AVDisk update a disk set on these systems. You may also specify the keyboard layout for the rescue disks on the command line: avdisk.exe /language:xx where xx is one of the following: us : US English uk : UK English gr : German fr : French it : Italian sp : Spanish Additionally avdisk.exe supports the following command line switches: /forceupdate Forces AVDisk to update disks even if the AVDisk versions do not match. In that case AVDisk does not care whether there is already something on the floppy. /nocheck Instructs avdisk.exe not to verify that all necessary files are present. /tempdir:xyz Instructs avdisk.exe to use the directory xyz as the temporary directory. The default is the directory specified by the %temp% environment variable. /updateonly Instructs avdisk.exe to switch to update only mode for users of Windows 2000/NT/ME who have previously created rescue disks using Windows 9x. /windir:xyz Tells avdisk.exe what the Windows directory is. The default is the directory specified by the %winbootdir% environment variable. /setlanguage:xyz Switches the language AVDisk "speaks". If, for some reason, you want to change the program language after the initial setup, use this switch. Currently, you may replace xyz with either ENGLISH, FRENCH or GERMAN. Do not mix this up with the /language switch, which only controls the keyboard layout of the rescue disk. 5. Notes and hints ------------------ If you encounter problems with the installation program, you can try to specify the "safe" command line parameter when running either setup.bat or install.exe (without the quotes). In that case, install.exe will search for anti-virus programs only on drive C: and it will "behave" more cautiously. The installation program will search for anti-virus programs on CD-ROMs under Windows, however in such a case it is not possible to choose an anti-virus program located on a CD-ROM since CD-ROMs cannot be written to. 6. Reporting a bug ------------------ 6.1 Known problems ------------------ Some Windows 98 users might experience hangs of AVDisk when it copies files to floppy. At this time, it looks like this problem is Windows-related. If it occurs on your system, try to use the program in pure DOS mode. This should always work. 6.2 Send email -------------- If you discover a bug, make sure you have the latest version of the program as the bug may already have been fixed. See "Credits" for the address of the official AVDisk home page. If the bug still exists in the most recent version, send email to quantensprung@gmx.net and fbonroy@mail.dotcom.fr Bugs in QMS must be reported to Ralph Roth at RalphRoth@gmx.de Please describe your problem and be as specific as possible: - which version are you using? - which program is causing trouble? - which operating system are you using (name, version)? - describe the symptoms and the circumstances under which the bug occurs Of course, you may also report spelling and grammar mistakes. ;-) 7. Credits ---------- The official AVDisk homepage is http://www.avdisk.org The official QMS homepage is http://come.to/rose_swe The following people are involved in AVDisk: Digital56k - wrote the original AVDisk batch files Deniz Oezmen - wrote SearchRD and the current avdisk.exe Steven Craik - worked out AVPDOS32 support for AVDisk Frederic Bonroy - wrote install.exe and this help file Axel Pettinger - worked out support for NAI ScanPM Ozzie Ostrich - helped inventing the update mode for W2K Ralph Roth - wrote QMS and ENVINFO Clay - tested AVDisk with EZ Antivirus Robert Green - did a lot of testing on the startup system Uzi Pat - solved a keyboard layout problem 8. Legal drivel --------------- - This program is freeware and you are encouraged to distribute it. You may NOT charge money for the distribution of AVDisk. - You may NOT modify any of the files included in the AVDisk archive and you may NOT distribute modified files. - You may NOT distribute AVDisk together with malicious software of any kind. This includes joke programs and virus construction kits as well as virus creation documentation. - You may distribute only the entire AVDisk archive; you may NOT distribute single files. Likewise, you may NOT add files to the AVDisk zip file. - You agree to use this program at your own risk. It has been tested thoroughly and contains no potentially dangerous code; however malfunction can never be completely ruled out. - The included program "qms.exe" is licensed for use in conjunction with this software distribution only. You may not use it otherwise or even distribute it without the AVDisk package. For detailed information, see the QMS website (section 7).