I have a friend whose computer has only a dial-up internet connection. She uses XP but is not up-to-date on windows updates—probably a year or so behind. She does have the lastest free Avast installed and the db is current. She also has limited danger because she barely uses her computer—connects to very few websites and gets very little email. She reads email via the Netscape web interface, on Firefox. She is smart enough never to open attachments or to fall for phising scams.
I want to get her up-to-date and make sure she is virus free. I’m running Windows update (takes about 4 hours, it says, to download SP3 and all latest updates), and then I want to do a full scan with Avast. If this comes out okay, what is the probability she is clean? Are there viruses that can infiltrate and not be detected by Avast, or perhaps have they disabled Avast?
Not only would the virus signatures be out of date but the program too and there are many changes that improve security in the latest version4.8.1335. If she has that version (if not see #### below), then she could try a manual update, right click the avast ‘a’ icon, select Updating, iAVS Update. Depending on how long it has been since that was updated it could take some time, latest VPS is 090515-0. If it is way out of date the full VPS file is very big.
avast! VPS Update - Manual Download - For updating an off-line systems, download (about 27MB) using a system with internet connection, save the file to a CD or USB drive and transfer it to the off-line system and run it to update the VPS signatures file.
So I would suggest downloading the latest version of avast. So if you have broadband you could Download the latest version of avast (32.76MB) http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (copy to CD or USB to transfer to her system). Use that when she/you reinstall it.
Ensure she is off-line, uninstall, reboot, install the latest version, reboot.
I understand most of your post but I want to get one thing clear. Her avast software has been running continuously all this time and has kept downloading the virus definitions. Apparently those are small and can be downloaded by dial-up quickly. However, it’s XP that is way out of date. She doesn’t have SP3 and numerous other updates. So she probably has security holes in the OS itself.
However, as I wrote, she barely uses this computer and has never opened an attachment.
You could try this MS site. I would recommend download ing your own system burning them to CD/DVD and then loading them manually on her system. While you’re at it you can download the latest AVAST definations/Program Updates and carry them over as well.
A piece of advice: Unless her system is running very well avoid Windows XP SP3. My experiece is 25% of the time it screws up the computer more than it helps. If you do it anyway consider a program called dial-a-fix by lunarsoft to repair the troubles (google it).
Careful playing tech guy for friends…it can get very long and very costly
In my experience the systems were screwed up because they did not have SP3 not because of it but due to “playing tech guy for friends” that know just enough to be dangerous by spreading old rumors and information.
If her VPS version is close to the version I gave above, the format (090515-0) of the version number is, year, month, day, -0 = first update in that day and there are times when there are more than one a day (-1 or -2, etc.), so that figure changes. In which case just do a manual update, right click the avast ‘a’ icon, select Updating, iAVS Update as I mentioned.
It not only runs smoothly it also protects against newer vulnerabilities, so the security of your OS depends on it, it is a must, just like one resident av solution and one two-way software firewall and a couple of non-resident anti-malware scanners, like MBAM and SAS, but we still see whole armies of users without fully updated and patched OS and the latest updated and patched versions of third party software, you can check that with Secunia PSI from here: http://secunia.com/PSISetup.exe