[TORRaven]

Turns out a few friends of mine whom ive known a couple of years, played Freespace way back when it first came out.

They had not heard of the SCP, so i turned them on to it.

They both have Windows Vista, but I am running XP 64-bit.

Both of them say that they were able to play the game for a while, but then Windows said that Freespace SCP was infected with a Virus, and shut their computer down.

Now, neither of their PC's will boot up at all.  Could it be that someone may have laced the SCP downloads with a Virus, or is this just a Windows Vista issue?
(again, I have no issues running it)

Thanks!

[Jeff Vader]

No one has ever complained that there'd be viruses in anything FreeSpace-related. And if you've managed alright, it would suggest that the issue is within Vista.

I assume they have some means for a system restore usable.

[TORRaven]

Yeah, I know one of them has done system restore.

They both installed it at the same time - however one guy couldn't get it to run at all, and it alerted to a Virus right away.
The other guy could play a little bit, but then it did the same thing.

In both cases, it said that FreeSpace was infected, the PC rebooted, and would not boot back into windows until they did a system restore.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Where did they get FS2 and were they running FS2_Open or Freespace.exe? 

[Jeff Vader]

Yeah, I know one of them has done system restore.

They both installed it at the same time - however one guy couldn't get it to run at all, and it alerted to a Virus right away.
The other guy could play a little bit, but then it did the same thing.

In both cases, it said that FreeSpace was infected, the PC rebooted, and would not boot back into windows until they did a system restore.

Hmm. Well, they could use one or more antivirus softwares to sweep through their FreeSpace installations to see if they pick up anything. If there doesn't seem to be anything, I suppose shutting down Windows Defender might help. Someone could confirm this, since I have little experience with Vista.

Where did they get FS2 and were they running FS2_Open or Freespace.exe? 

That too. Hopefully not a too shady source.

[TORRaven]

They got it from FSOInstaller.com

They did not have FS2 installed at all, so they did a full download of the entire thing.

Not sure about which exe they are running, i'll have to find out.

And I will have them try that Windows Defender thing, as well as run a scan on the install files.

[Droid803]

lol Vista overreacted. There's really no need to kill itself even if there's a virus. Just freaking quarantine it. Its rather counter-intuitive how it mimics actually being infected by a virus in response to detecting a potential one.

Sry, that was a bit OT but I found that amusing.

[TORRaven]

lol Vista overreacted. There's really no need to kill itself even if there's a virus. Just freaking quarantine it. Its rather counter-intuitive how it mimics actually being infected by a virus in response to detecting a potential one.

Sry, that was a bit OT but I found that amusing.

I couldn't agree more.  They called me up all mad thinking I did it on purpose!  I was like, guys - i don't know what to tell you except that either it has Got to be a Vista issue.. Or there is a very small chance someone snuck a virus into the FSOInstaller, which I doubt.

Vista is Stupid.

[McMad]

I've been running FSO on Vista a few months now without any problems. I hope it doesn't try any stunts like that with me.

What program exactly went crazy? I'm not using any of the default virus programs, so it's possible one of them is the problem.

[IceFire]

Vista Home Premium 32bit.  No issues at all with FreeSpace 2 SCP.

[eliex]

I've been running FSO on Vista a few months now without any problems. I hope it doesn't try any stunts like that with me.

I'm been using FSO  on Vista HP 32-bit for about 3 years now with nothing really happening. Seems like an unfortunate happening.

Never use Windows Defender. A waste of RAM and pretty much useless.

[Aquazorx]

what antivirus are they running, it doesnt sound like a vista thing. ive been running SCP with vista for a good 6-8 months now

[S-99]

I'd be curious if the person who was transporting the files may have had the virus. Such as a person who had a virus on their vista installation and then burned fs2 scp onto a dvd for their friends.

Reminds me of backing up files for my customers. They come in with pc's and want me to backup their data to external drives they own. Sounds pretty easy, but not. Got to wipe out the viruses on the computers first before i do the backups of course. One reason why i prefer backing up to dvd's if the customer doesn't have that much data to backup. That way they can't do something like plug the external drive into another computer that does have a virus and start the spreading all over again; a dvd-r is read only and novices understand that...a virus can't possibly spread to a dvd-r, but a virus can spread from a dvd-r if a virus accidentally got burned onto it.

In other words it can be a sucky situation backing up for novices, and even transporting data.

Anyway, the scp is not virus laden itself, everyone here in the hlpbb can attest to that including me. If you want a good simple and good way to get rid of viruses, you can use the port of clamav for windows called clamwin. Clamwin scans, it quarantines or deletes infected files depending on the user preference. It autoupdates and requires no registration or money at all to use. I just set it up on my friends mom's computer to do an automated scan every week, and it's a heck of a lot easier to use than avast or norton or whatever. To check the effectiveness of the antivirus, i get to see that the computer is running smooth, and i can check the virus scan reports. It works like a charm.

[Jeff Vader]

and it's a heck of a lot easier to use than avast

Hey, avast! isn't hard to use. Apart from registering it every 14 months, it's pretty much install-and-forget.

[TORRaven]

I'd be curious if the person who was transporting the files may have had the virus. Such as a person who had a virus on their vista installation and then burned fs2 scp onto a dvd for their friends.

Actually, thats not an issue here.  They both downloaded the files individually.  one did not DL it then save it for the other.  They both downloaded it using the FSOInstaller

[Jeff Vader]

Actually, thats not an issue here.  They both downloaded the files individually.  one did not DL it then save it for the other.  They both downloaded it using the FSOInstaller

Oh, the waste of bandwidth... 

You could have just copied a working installation to other computers.

[S-99]

Hey, avast! isn't hard to use. Apart from registering it every 14 months, it's pretty much install-and-forget.

Avast can be surprisingly hard to use for people when those 14 months run out if the user isn't terribly smart. They claim that it stopped working and that avast is a pos. I go in and show them how to reregister, and then they're all good. It's why i'm glad something like clamwin exists. Clamwin you can just install, schedule it to do scanning, and you can truly just forget about it running. It's not for all computers though. I install different software for peoples different uses, but it's really looking like i'll stop installing avast for people in favor of clamwin. Clamwin really does make a computer easier to use without having to pay attention to the antivirus more so than avast.

[Kosh]

Vista Home Premium 32bit.  No issues at all with FreeSpace 2 SCP.

Your version isn't 1337 enough to commit suicide when trying to run updated 10 year old 32 bit software.

[LuaPineapple]

They both have Windows Vista.

Both of them say that they were able to play the game for a while, but then Windows said that Freespace SCP was infected with a Virus, and shut their computer down.

IRONY LEVELS CRITICAL!! EVACUATE!!
Honestly though, other then the pretty GUI (which you can get for free and make it look even better) Vista is as a load of bull****ted chips (as Yahtezee would say). I got it with my laptop and played with it for a few months. Got feed up and uninstalled it when it started saying no one, not even the root super admin God had authority to delete a folder containing M$ advertisement. Honestly, get XP, it's faster, smaller, neater, cheeper, more stable, more reliable, has more hardware support, requires lower specs, looks just as good or better with a few tweeks (go look at my desktop) and doesn't have all the DRM crap requirements in it. (Or at least, not as much.)

[Mars]

Vista Ultimate, no issues with SCP...

And it runs just as well as XP on my computer.