FAQ << >>

Can a normal DOS virus work under MS-Windows?

Most of normal DOS viruses won't work under MS-Windows. The reason is that most resident viruses are not compatible with the memory management in Windows. Also, many existing viruses will damage Windows application if they try to infect them as normal EXE files; thus alerting the user.

However, many resident viruses that infect .COM files only will work perfectly in a DOS window. All non-resident .COM infectors will be able to run and infect too. There are few viruses present which are Windows specific i.e. these viruses are compatible with the NewEXE format (e.g. NATAS, DieHard-II).

Any low level trapping of interrupt 13, as by boot sector or partition viruses , can also affect Window operations particularly if protected disk access (32BitDiskAccess = ON) is used.