Anti virus software

[kandrathe]

Perhaps I should provide some more information. My husband is, um, not as meticulous about how he cares for his computer or what sites he visits from his computer. That's one reason that we don't share computers, and I don't have any sharing enabled on the internal network.

For me, I'm happy with my AVG free, along with Adaware and Spybot. For him, I'm not sure it's enough. We just spent the better part of yesterday cleaning his brand new computer, which was *just assembled on Friday*. :o It seems that something icky came in on an old hard drive.

He was running AntiVir on his old computer, and on his new one. I'm not sure how often he updated it or scanned it, or what he usually did when he had an infection (usually and infection are words that make me cringe when used together, I know). He wasn't able to clean out the most recent infection without my help.

I don't think that I can get him to change his surfing habits. I probably come across as preachy even when I try not to. However, I think I have his ear for the short term as far as installing and configuring some quality software that will help avoid this problem in the future. I want to take advantage of this opportunity and get something good set up.

Looking at some guides, I'd like to get either Kasperski or NOD32. I am concerned about the interface with NOD32. Does anybody have experience with this? Can it do auto-updates and auto-scans?

I would recommed one more thing; to add WinPatrol by BillP Studios. It watches the important areas of your system (Registry, Hosts, Startup, IE addins, etc) and has a little watch dog icon in the system tray. If anything is installed it barks and allows you to stop it if it is something you do not desire. You just have to teach your users to not accept the installs. It also allows you to look at what is running on the system, as services, in the background and unhook it as well. My standard is AVG, WinPatrol, and Ad-Aware.

I've finally convinced my family after the umpteenth rebuild (I've started to keep a Ghost image) of their computers that they should be more intentional about installs, make sure its reputable, and that they've put it in the proper place. And then, when in doubt, call in the experts. The other stuff I do standard on every build is to not allow anyone to set preview mode on e-mails (which could accidentally open a virus), and set up the auto install feature for upgrades to important software, like the OS, and the protections. Another idea I've been toying with is to set up MS Virtual Machine (currently free) with XP as a sandbox for those higher risk activities when research takes you into dangerous territory.