AVG To The Rescue!

If you have ever had to deal with a malware-infected PC that will not boot or simply grinds to a halt, you know how frustrating it can be to fix. AVG have simplified the repair process with the announcement that their Rescue CD in now available free of charge. This CD contains a bootable Linux distribution with a number of very useful utilities, not least of which is a portable version of AVG Anti-Virus. If the PC is connected to the Internet, it can update itself with the latest virus signatures. Other features include a registry editor, disk and network testing tools and a text editor. There are two versions – one for burning onto a CD and one you can install on a USB memory stick. They both can be downloaded from here.

A word of warning if you are using the USB version, it comes with a utility to make the memory stick bootable – makeboot.bat. Copy all the uncompressed files to the memory stick and run makeboot from there, otherwise it will overwrite your MBR (master boot record) and make your PC unbootable.

Don’t forget that AVG also do a free version of their Anti-Virus software for home or personal use available here or alternatively, you can try Microsoft’s free Security Essentials.