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README
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1988-08-11
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Virus Checker
This program was written by John Veldthuis, 21 Ngatai Street, Manaia,
New Zealand, and has been released into the public domain for all to use in
the war against viruses.
Virus checker does the same job as VirusX by Steve Tibbett (as found on
AmigaLibDisk #137), but it has a number of serious bugs removed and has
been re-written in assembler.
You can either start it from the Workbench or run it from CLI.
Generally you should install Virus_Checker in your startup-sequence, in the
form :
runback Virus_Checker -c
where the -c tells it to check the disks already in the machine. It
will then check each disk as it is inserted in the machine. If a
non-standard boot block is found you will be presented with a requester
asking if you want to Display It or Ignore It. If you display it you will
see the first 325 bytes starting at track 0 sector 0, and then be asked if
you would like to Remove It (over write it with a standard boot block) or
Ignore It.
If it recognises the boot block as either an SCA or ByteBandit virus it
will tell you. You should of course always remove such viruses
immediately. The author has been fortunate enough not to have encountered
other viruses yet, so only knows about those two. If you have found other
viruses the author invites you to send him copies so that he can update the
program.
Of course not all non-standard boot blocks are viruses. Don't try to
rewrite the boot block unless you are very sure it is not a legitimate boot
block (if the program recognises it as a virus then do remove it,
otherwise be very cautious). Copy Protected disks, games especially, often
have custom boot blocks that this program is suspicious of. If your copy
protected disk still works ok then it probably doesn't really have a virus
on it, so don't select 'Remove It'.
You can of course use this program to validate a whole lot of disks by
swapping them in and out of your disk drives in succession, but don't try
and do it to fast as AmigaDOS may not realise you've changed a disk if you
withdraw one and insert another (even if into another drive) quickly. Also
sometimes AmigaDOS locks up altogether if you're madly swapping disks in
and out (probably an interupt in some critical bit of code).
Also included is a version written for use with the ARP library, which
is slightly smaller and can be used if you've installed the ARP.Library
file in your libs: directory.
_
o(_)
/ /\ --- Tony Wills
156c Queens Drive
Lyall Bay
Wellington 3
NEW ZEALAND
(BIX: ajwills)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
22-Aug-88
Virus_Checker has been updated since the above documentation, it now allows
you to display the first two boot blocks of any suspect disk, and
automatically checks any disks in the drives when it is started-up (ie the
-c option is no longer needed).
It also includes minor bug fixes.
The ARP version hasn't been updated yet.
P.S. The icon was just for fun (and 5 times bigger than the program!), I
suggest you install Virus_Checker in your startup-sequence and remove my
icon.
--- Tony