Anti Virus on your PPC??

[pivaska]

Does any one have an anti virus program on their ppc? We use Trend Micro at our office and it is possible to put it on my Toshiba E800. It doesn't mention anything about overhead as far as memory or power goes. Any experiences out there?

[dean_shan]

You're not going to need AV for you PPC. Windows virus cannot be transmitted to your PPC. As for now you are safe.

[Supaiku]

Until people start writing virii for PPCs...

[OSUKid7]

You're not going to need AV for you PPC. Windows virus cannot be transmitted to your PPC. As for now you are safe.Windows XP/NT/9x viruses can't, but Windows CE viruses can. Luckily there has only been one to date, and it's pretty simple.

I'm pretty sure the Professional versions of Norton AntiVirus include an installer for Pocket PCs. Not entirely sure how it works though - I don't use it.

[Darius Wey]

Windows XP/NT/9x viruses can't, but Windows CE viruses can. Luckily there has only been one to date, and it's pretty simple.

Correction - there are two. Brador and Duts, but either way, the risk of transmission to your PPC is very low. Native Windows versions that run on PC cannot be infected by PPC viruses, and vice versa whereby PC-based Windows viruses are not able to infect PPCs.

I'm pretty sure the Professional versions of Norton AntiVirus include an installer for Pocket PCs. Not entirely sure how it works though - I don't use it.

The Professional versions of NAV do not include an installer for PPC. The antivirus application provided by Symantec for the PPC is a different product. It is called Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds.

[OSUKid7]

The Professional versions of NAV do not include an installer for PPC. The antivirus application provided by Symantec for the PPC is a different product. It is called Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds.Ah, I stand corrected. I was thinking I remembered the Pro versions included that, but I guess not. What do the pro versions include then? (I'm still running NAV 2002 and 2003 non-pro. :lol:)

[Darius Wey]

The Professional versions of NAV do not include an installer for PPC. The antivirus application provided by Symantec for the PPC is a different product. It is called Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds.Ah, I stand corrected. I was thinking I remembered the Pro versions included that, but I guess not. What do the pro versions include then? (I'm still running NAV 2002 and 2003 non-pro. :lol:)

Basically, the standard and professional versions of the product do the same in terms of anti-virus functions, although the Professional version does include some extras: Norton Protected Recycle Bin, and some other features which I can't really remember.

Although it seems as though Symantec have discontinued their line of NAV Professional and implemented most of the extra features in their latest 2005 releases. Thus, I think there is only one version of NAV2005, with varying user licence packs available.

[maximus]

Just curious. A hard reset should clean a PPC from any virii, right ?

[OSUKid7]

Just curious. A hard reset should clean a PPC from any virii, right ?Yep, unless it infects the ROM...which would really suck.

[rocky_raher]

Just curious. A hard reset should clean a PPC from any virii, right ?

Almost certainly. BUT....

If you back up your PPC, a virus would be in your backup files, and when you restore, you restore the virus.

If you suspect a computer is infected, and don't have access to anti-virus software (or have an infection that's resistant to your anti-virus software), back up your data files separately, do a hard reset, then restore all of your applications from the original install program. (I like to keep the cab files from important applications on my SD card, so that I could restore an app when on the road. Conceiveably a virus could infect a cab file it finds, so I'd restore from a cab or an install program that I'd saved on my desktop, or backed up to a CD shortly after purchase, so the install/cab file would be safe from infection.) Then restore your data files.

Generally, viruses infect programs, not data. Like all generalizations, there are exceptions. In this case, there exist macro viruses that can inhabit Word and Excel documents. (BTW, I wonder if a Word macro virus on a Word document on your desktop (they have existed for over a decade) would still be effective once a Word doc was copied to a PPC and converted to a Pocket Word doc.) To be 100% safe (a little voice in my head says that if you think you're 100% safe from viruses, you've deluded yourself; perhaps I should say "to be closer to 100% safe"), carefully examine your Word and Excel docs for macros.