padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) (08/11/90)
After my last posting, Mr. McAfee called to tell me that it is not necessary to boot from a write-protected floppy for SCAN to detect a virus resident in memory & dangerous ones are checked for each time SCAN runs (to check for all memory resident viruses, the /m option should be used). Since some machines require special drivers for fixed disk access that would not be on the floppy, this is good to know. During our installation of Enigma-Logic's Virus-Safe on PCs we experienced problems on a limited but significant number of Zenith 158 & 159 (PC & XT) machines: Each time one booted up, a changed boot sector was reported. Use of DEBUG revealed that something in the OS was periodically placing a time stamp in the boot record (logical sector 0) and Virus-Safe was properly flagging the change. Hard drives formatted with the signatures ZDS3.1 and ZDS3.2 (Z-DOS ver 3.1 & 3.2) were the most prevalent. A call to Zenith revealed that they had had some reports of that type and would have to get back with me about exactly what was going on. They also stated that while some anti-virus routines had reported difficulty, others did not. When I have more information, it will be passed on. In the meantime, if you have a Zenith that reports constant changes to the boot sector, this may be the problem (then again, maybe you have a boot sector infector).