Windows 98SE Antivirus ??

I need to find a antivirus product for my old Dell Inspiron 5000. Can't seem to find a program that supports 98SE (free atleast) Anyone know of one. Looked up Avast and AVG but they don't list 98SE anymore. I'm reluctant to use McAfee due to stability problems it has. Any recommendations short of condoms will be appreciated!

windows 7 OS and a new PC.

Judging by the specs for your Dell Inspiron 5000, it would be a good candidate for windows XP Professional.

I upgraded to XP Pro that I got off eBay on my Thinkpad 600X last week. Works so much better than with 98se (better wireless connection, better volume control etc.

You could get xp pro on eBay for $70.00 or less. This open up for much more opportunities for software upgrades.

XP works great on my Inspirion 600m. I don't think I can find memory for the old Inspirion 5000, I think I upgraded it to 512MB. An additional worry is that I have some specialized programs ($$$$) that I may not be able to find drivers for without purchasing ($$$$) upgraded software. I'm reluctant to connect it to the internet because of all the bugs. I was able to transfer all my life savings (data) which was about 6GB compressed that I had stored on 1GB Jaz disks which are also getting long in the tooth.

I must be a cheap SOB because the net present value of the data is North of a few hundred thousand dollars if the applications were to be recreated today ---- but still I want something free!!

One would think I should know the answer since I occassionally teach computer courses, but everyone has to specialize which is why we have this wonderful forum.

I need the same thing, antivirus for WIn. 98, NOT an UPGRADE. Anyone?

'fraid you might be out of luck in finding anything that will support w98. That was my primary motive in upgrading to xp.

There are several free online virus scanners that you might like to check out.

Snuffy
Do you do anything on eBay? Memory can be found for $20-25.

Hi guys, try this link it might be what you need for Win 98.

Rich

http://www.clamwin.com/

Thanks for the reminder. I heard about that product but never tried it - one track mind - freebies! As I recall, I think my Dell 5000 is maxed out at 512mb RAM - it won't know what to do with the rest of the memory, but I will check out ebay. Appreciate your help.

You could always try not downloading and opening email and other stuff from untrusted sources. Yes, there is still a risk, but it is very small. What's the usage of this system? If it is going to remain a high risk for infection, can you limit the use of it for sensitive data and reinstal the OS from scratch every month or so?

Which is another point. 98SE is unsupported by MS at this point. It likely has all sorts of security breaks at this point that make it vulnerable to hacking and other threats that anti-virus software will not protect against. Likely also has old versions of IE or other software on it, also opening vectors for attack.

If you can't upgrade to XP, can your use case support switching to Linux?

If you can find a win2000 cd and the install keys, that could be an alternative to win98. It is NT based like XP, should run most free AV software. The real advantage is that is does not 'authenticate' with Micro$oft, so you can install multiple copies; not legally but it will install. It too is not supported anymore but it is certainly better than 98 or 95.

Get a program called siw.exe. If it runs under your O/S it will tell you what kind of memory & how much your system can take. You get a lot of useful info.

kozel wrote:If you can find a win2000 cd and the install keys, that could be an alternative to win98. It is NT based like XP, should run most free AV software. The real advantage is that is does not 'authenticate' with Micro$oft, so you can install multiple copies; not legally but it will install. It too is not supported anymore but it is certainly better than 98 or 95.

Get a program called siw.exe. If it runs under your O/S it will tell you what kind of memory & how much your system can take. You get a lot of useful info.

I agree with this option. Win 2000 is a very stable platform that does not require a whole lot of resources and runs very well on older PCs.

You could also see if there are any DOS based anti-virus programs still out there.

coaledsweat wrote:http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I downloaded and tried the "security essentials" on my laptop. What a resource hog. It brought the computer to an almost standstill. I uninstalled it after a couple of days.

beemerboy wrote:

coaledsweat wrote:http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I downloaded and tried the "security essentials" on my laptop. What a resource hog. It brought the computer to an almost standstill. I uninstalled it after a couple of days.

I've been quite happy with Security Essentials. I don't think it is an option for W98 because it may only be for XP and beyond. If you install it make sure you uninstall any other AV you have running. Installing multiple AV products is never a good thing. Any AV product puts an extra burden on your computer because it scan everything you touch or open. If your clean Windows or Linux system is slow, adding memory is your cheapest, easiest and best upgrade.

beemerboy wrote:

coaledsweat wrote:http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I downloaded and tried the "security essentials" on my laptop. What a resource hog. It brought the computer to an almost standstill. I uninstalled it after a couple of days.

You need to remove all the other anti-this that and the other thing from your computer. I have had great luck with it and mine runs much faster than it did with the other stuff. AVG, Avast, etc.