Good Anti-Virus and Diagnostic type Software ?

[BigLance]

Hey guys/gals

Haven't been around here much lately, but I got my own business off to a start: TJI Custom Computers. The ad is in the paper, getting a business liscense and checking account today or tomarrow. I am only 18, but I have a good set of references from different companies and schools and I'm halfway through getting my CISCO Certification and an AAS degree.

Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to have a Diagnostic program to help me out a little: or a program that will make a print out of all the hardware for my customers for the futre so I don't have to go through and make a list of each piece of hardware... If you know of some software that does something like this let me know, and also I need an Anti-Virus program for the machines I build for people, whats the best or whats a good one ?

Thanks for yall's help
Later

Todd Ison
TJI Custom Computers

 

[shathal]

Re: Anti Virus Program:
I personally go for Symantec's "Norton Anti Virus" - Symantec has saved my back a few times with the NAV (Anti Virus) and NU (Norton Utilities).

Other "popular" choices are:
* McAffee
* Sophos (hardly nowadays though)

I would recommend using either Norton AV or McAffee - hope it helps .

 

[BigLance]

Hey thanks for the opinion, I will probably go with the Norton......

 

[wyvrn]

Norton is tops on pay antivirus software. Innoculate IT is a great free software.

 

[konichiwa]

Norton by far. They have LiveUpdate which logs on and downloads new virus definitions. They come out with new ones every few days, I feel like I'm inside a virus-condom.

 

[Zepper]

I second the InnoculateIt suggestion. Very good, and free for personal use. Recently they have actually posted several sig file updates in a single day. You could install it on their machines and they would just log on and register when they get their machine home. It's at http://antivirus.cai.com For diagnostics I like Ontrack System Suite and Norton (for commercial). To use in your shop there are better from several places e.g. QuickTech Pro, PC Certify Pro and AMIDiag. Probably good to have a POST card for your shop too. For listing out system features, there is a very good downloadable program called Hardware Info (HWINFO). Good luck.
IMO, you are a little young to be starting this kind of business-- you'll get tired of dealing with the idiots (90% of the general public) real quick.
.bh.

 

[MWink]

I recommend InnoculateIT PE. I STRONGLY DO NOT recommend Norton! I have had terrible luck with them. It is responsible for putting 3 bad sectors on my old 6.4GB HD.

 

[SecureID]

I highly recommend NOD32 for Anti-Virus. I suggest anyone concerned or interested check it out. htt://www.nod32.com.au
Norton is garbage in my opinion, i used to love it. But too many times i've had a virus infect the Norton Executables straight away, rendering the program inoperable. It's one strong point is online virus definition updates. But thats basically a mainstream feature now.

 

[martysweb]

MWink your stament is very dumb it did not do that to you old hard drive what proof do you have!!!!

 

[shathal]

MWink - could you please explain to me exactly how NAV (or ANY Anti-virus tool for that matter) has "put" bad sectors on your HD?. You *DO * know that bad sectors are a physical/magnetically "defective" (unreliable sector being more correct) part of your drive, right?

Please explain your statement somewhat - it doesn't make much sense as it stands. Anti-Virus scanners check SOFTWARE / files. They read the MBR's and that's about as much as they care about the HDD. They don't interact with it on a logical/physical level.

 

[Xp]

Norton SystemWorks 2001 is great! It has Norton AntiVirus, Norton Utilities, Norton Ghost, Norton CleanSweep, and more!

 

[potz]

Norton Systemworks is bloat. Only things I have installed are Disk Doctor and Speed Disk. I like AntiViral Toolkit Pro by Kaspersky Labs. Daily updates, pretty cheap. But Norton's the accepted AV program, and it seems Mcafee shows up on a lot of corporate computers even tho it sucks nut.

 

[Biggs]

I agree, Norton hands down.

 

[BigLance]

Cool deal, I ordered the Norton SystemWorks 2001 and got it real cheap...
I sure hope this works out, the cool part is I'm doing it at my house (We built and extra large room just for this purpose when we built our house, its sweet), see I live in the country surrounded my small towns and there currently is no one else besides me doing this type of work... And I think a lot of the work I do will be going to people's houses (thank God I get paid for my time on the road!).

Anyways, thanx for your help !

 

[Yossarian]

First, congratulations and good luck with your business! Second, I wonder about:

"I ordered the Norton SystemWorks 2001 and got it real cheap"

You don't plan on installing this one copy of the software on all your customers' machines, do you?

 

[BIGGDOG]

My vote is for Norton.

 

[acexg1]

Vote here for InoculateIt PE.

 

[Blayze]

another vote for InoculateIt PE

 

[StayPuff]

...yet another vote for InoculateIt PE