Can AVAST be installed on an SD card?

[ady4um]

@Tiger-Heli,

I understand that it is not your intention to actually use the drive as removable really. I was talking about an hypothetical (but potentially real) situation, whether intentional or not. Windows doesn't care about your intention. It recognizes that disk as removable, and it acts differently towards it.

I don't understand your response on my comment about "all" programs or Avast alone. There are MANY settings regarding the "programs" location in Windows. Changing the default "programs" folder location is not a problem, if you just installed Windows and before installing anything else. Several "tweaking" tools would help you with that. But once you start playing with several programs and with other Windows issues, I wouldn't be surprised to find some inconsistencies or instabilities some time in the future.

So, IMHO, either find a trick to set the new disk as "fixed", install Windows anew and change the default "programs" locations, and only then install "all" your programs to that location, or change the strategy to gain some free space.

I still find it difficult to understand why 8GB of space is not enough for those programs you mentioned. You just need to save your data (not the programs) to a different location. Just to give you an example, if I had to install an email client (not really needed, but anyway), I would install the email client on the default location, but all those massive amount of emails nowadays we daily share and the contact list would be saved on the "removable" drive. Maybe not ideal either, but still better than saving the program itself in a different location.

BTW, several of those programs you mentioned have some portable alternative (either from the same producer or from a competitor), specially useful for "removable" drives and netbooks.

I want to clarify something. Many programs will let you install on "any" location, no matter the current "programfiles" folder in Windows. Those are, generally speaking, not a "big" problem. But some programs are more "sensitive" to those "custom" installations. Your antivirus (anyone) is one of those "sensitive" programs.

[Pondus]

Well for me Panda, considering it is meant to be a cloud based AV solution, it used to be a larger download/installation file than avast. As far as I'm aware it installs a full AV as such, which requires all the normal elements. I don't know how big a footprint that would be.

I too am not convinced on the cloud AV concept as to how effective it would be if you haven't got a connection.

How does Panda Cloud Antivirus really work?     http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=57112&tstart=0

Cloud-based antivirus do not protect while offline
While this might be true of some cloud-based antivirus implementations, in the case of Panda Cloud Antivirus it is not true. Panda Cloud Antivirus has a local cached copy of the Collective Intelligence cloud servers. This local cache is tasked with detecting (even while not connected to the Internet) malware that is in the wild, non-PE malware and other threats. Unlike traditional signature updates, this local cache update is a “moving target” of what the community sees as circulating out there in the wild. Therefore it is able to efficiently protect against the important threats. This local cache does not protect against Win98 or DOS viruses or even malware that is dead or not circulating anymore. That is why the community aspect of Panda Cloud Antivirus is so important as, the more people use it, the better protection it offers.
 UPDATE: Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.1 includes 4 additional new layers of offline protection: 2 behavioural engines (blocking & runtime analysis), autorun disabling and USB vaccination.

and not doing so bad in test
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_aug2011.pdf
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1%5Breport_no%5D=113111

[Lisandro]

Hope the new avast 7 cloud features improve the detection of ITW malware.
We don't know (yet) which are these "cloud features" though...

[Tiger-Heli]

Before I get into this topic - is there any way to export a scan log from AVAST as a text file (I did a quick search).

I ran a system scan and I had report options enabled.

I can view the results in AVAST, but I didnt' see anyway to export it.  I found results of the Anti-RootKit scan in C:\Documents&Settings\username\Application Data\Avast\logs (if memory serves) but not system scan results.

Thanks!!!  

Windows doesn't care about your intention. It recognizes that disk as removable, and it acts differently towards it.

True - OTOH - it seems like the best option for getting more usage out of the netbook.

I don't understand your response on my comment about "all" programs or Avast alone. There are MANY settings regarding the "programs" location in Windows. Changing the default "programs" folder location is not a problem, if you just installed Windows and before installing anything else.

Basically, we are saying the same thing.  For example:

• Starting with a clean installation and setting the default programs file to D:\Program Files and installing new software there works fine (except for programs like Microsoft security Essentials - oddly, if you try that, it tells you it needs 15M of free space and you only have 14GB available.
• Initially installing programs to C:\Program Files and later custom installing new software to D:\Program Files works - except some software does not prompt you for the installation directory.
• Initially installing programs to C:\Program Files and later changing the default folder to D:\Program files usually does not work unless you uninstall all the programs and then re-install them.
• The solution with mounting the SD card to an empty folder on C:\ I think has even more issues b/c I don't think the SD card will appear as BOTH D:\ and C:\Program Files\SDHC - but maybe it does - I haven't tested it yet.
• Essentially - to do it properly - I would have to uninstall the programs (or copy them to a flash drive first), clear the SD card, mount the SD card to an empty folder on C:\, and re-install all the programs to that folder - just b/c AVAST won't install to a removable drive.
• If I decide to do so, it isn't a major issue as there are only a half-dozen programs to worry about, but it's a pain for example, freeing up a 1GB USB flash drive, copying the Microsoft Word CD to the flash drive, installing from the flash drive, etc.

So, IMHO, either find a trick to set the new disk as "fixed", install Windows anew and change the default "programs" locations, and only then install "all" your programs to that location, or change the strategy to gain some free space.

I still find it difficult to understand why 8GB of space is not enough for those programs you mentioned.

We use WinXP at work also - I just checked and the Windows folder here is 8.34 GB, 8.13 GB on disk - that doesn't leave a lot of room on a 8GB drive for Word or Anti-Virus.  I'll agree a clean install is probably not bad, but when you fold in 5 years of security updates and patches from Microsoft ...  There is no E-mail or even an E-mail client application on the netbook.

BTW, several of those programs you mentioned have some portable alternative (either from the same producer or from a competitor), specially useful for "removable" drives and netbooks.

I like those - although they have issues also - i.e. to update the flash and shockwave players for Firefox portable, you typically have to install the full version, then copy the plugins from the plugins folder of the full installation to the portable one, then uninstall the full installation.

Anyway - it looks like there isn't a simple solution - but I can figure out how I want to workaround the problems.

Thanks again.

[ady4um]

is there any way to export a scan log from AVAST as a text file (I did a quick search).

I ran a system scan and I had report options enabled.

I can view the results in AVAST, but I didnt' see anyway to export it.  I found results of the Anti-RootKit scan in C:\Documents&Settings\username\Application Data\Avast\logs (if memory serves) but not system scan results

Each log is saved in a different text file, so no need to export them. Depending on Avast settings, the logs may be appended and may be "cleaned up". You just need to set the needed / wanted settings, and find the "correct" file for what you scanned.

Some logs are automatically replaced by the last scan (of the same "type" of scan). This is typical with boot scans.

[Tiger-Heli]

I tried the mount system volume last night on a desktop, just to see how it worked - it could be worse, but it could be better.

Essentially - you still see both the USB drive (mine was F:) and the folder (mine was C:\Program Files\SDHC\) but ...  The entire drive is mounted to the folder.  So you can't have just a program files folder on the SD card and still store other items on it and not have your installations getting mixed up with it.

There are two possible solutions for me, as I see it:

The one semi-recommended on here is to continue installing new programs to the SD card (D:\Program Files), and move additional files to other directories on the SD card (i386, Temp, etc), to free up additional space so the Anti-Virus can install to C:\.  This is the easiest solution as it requires no changes from the current configuration.
The second option might or might not work.  There was another website that mentioned using a program called Junction by Sysinternals to get Windows Update Files to install to the D:\ drive.  Essentially, you create a folder on the D:\ drive called D:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download and then you create a link (junction) from C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download to D:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download.  I think this could work if you set a junction between C:\Program Files and D:\Program Files - you could have the system install programs to C:\, but they would end up on D:\ instead.  (I realize to make this work, I would have to uninstall and re-install all the existing third-party software.)

As I said - the first option is much easier to implement and preferred on the forum here.