I noticed that there is no option on Avast Home Edition to scan the registry. Is this the same with all avast products or is it because it is Home and only Pro allows the option. Was just querying because my friends computer had a blaster virus value/key in the registry and Ad-Aware picked it up but couldn’t find a option to scan using avast HE.
Cheers
Avat is anti virus software not a registry editer/checker.
It would be strange to see a option in let’s say solitaire that says “Click here to record a home movie” ;D
That would be nice…
Another free AV’s have this, like AntiVir and AVG, and anothers sharewares…
It would be an extra scan feature…
What exactly do the other AVs do?
During the “memory scan” (when avast! starts and the splash-screen is displayed), the programs set in registry to be automatically started will be scanned as well. In the Professional version of avast!, you can create a special task to scan the files referenced from the "auto-start registry entries. A similar thing can be done using ashQuick.
However, this is always scanning of files references from the registry - not scanning of “registry itself”. Searching only for particular registry entries wouldn’t be the best idea, in my opinion - many viruses set their registry keys randomly; detecting such keys is like detecting infected files according to the filenames only, not their content.
Besides, the registry items themselves, without the corresponding virus files, are harmless.
But if you installed in an infected computer, the avast Home Edition will clean the infected the auto-start registry entries, boot records and system files, like AntiVir?
Don’t know exactly what is “system files” - if you mean scanning of basic system libraries (such as kernel32.dll) - yes, avast! does it is well during the “memory scan” (those files are always loaded in memory).
Yes, if you delete or move a file, avast! removes its auto-start registry entries as well.
System files:
COMMAND.COM
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
Thanks for your explanation 