Hello from a new member with a few questions

Bare Foot Kid said:

gregrocker said:

Is it correct that Avast Boot Scan is the deepest possible scan available as a free app? There are no services running for viruses to hide.

This makes it worthwhile to consider keeping it alongside the new favorite, MSE, however I'm not sure I would run two at once without first ruling out any performance hit.

Is there a way to get the boot scan to run on 64-bit, I wanted to run an Avast boot scan the other day and I got a notice that the boot scan feature was not available for 64-bit OSs.

Bummer. Didn't know this. Appears they are scrambling to compete with MSE among free customers who expand their virus net. They cut email registration but still bother users with registering online (MSE doesn't) and having to turn off annoying updated annoucement. When they become as invisible as MSE after a 30 second install, they might compete better - except that they have the boot scan on 32 bit.

But neither are as bloated as AVG became, and apparently intends to stay. Buh-bye!

First off thank you all for your advice!
I edited my OP to say express card (something new to me so i just typed what it said on my laptop lol)
About not using caps for "i" i normally only fix it if i am typing something formal i just wanted to say that i don't so i dont get people commenting on it is all.

Since i got several reply's telling me to use MSE for my anti-virus i will use that, thank you.

The exact model of my machine is a HP Pavilion dv7-3165dx it is VERY basic it doesn't even have blue tooth (i dont need that anyway so its ok with me)

As far as the TV tuner goes i do not want a huge dongle plugged into my USB port being a laptop I would rather use the express card as from experience large things plugged into a USB port is just too easy to break and i could leave the card in while my laptop is in my travel bag instead of removing it. just to make it easy. I checked out some Tv tuners on Newegg and here are a few of them.

• Newegg.com - Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1500 Notebook Express Card 1195 ExpressCard/54 Interface - TV Tuners & Video Devices
• Newegg.com - Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1500 Notebook Express Card 1143 Express Card/54 mm slots Interface
• Newegg.com - Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1500 Notebook Express Card MC Kit 1193 Express Card/54 mm slots Interface

• Newegg.com - Hauppauge 1192 WinTV-HVR-1950 Hybrid Video Recorder USB 2.0 Interface

They only sell Hauppauge on newegg and the last one is USB but it is used with a cable so that's OK for me i just dont want something huge sticking out of my USB ports.

IDK if i would want any of these, They all have poor user ratings.

Thank you all for what you have suggested so far.

EDIT: this reply was intended to be posted after CarlTR6's post i will edit again to a dress the rest of your posts I am SOO appreciative of how fast and how knowledgeable you guys are This is for sure going to be a daily visited site for me you guys are great!

regarding x64 and Avast boot scan, a quote from an Avast team member:

It will be included definitely in v5.1, we're already working on it.

They are saying 5.1 will be

summer of 2010

, so...

A Guy

Bare Foot Kid said:

Thanks A Guy.

Welcome :)

A Guy

Thank you all for the comments i am going to install MSE now instead of using nod32 untill it expires changing now will just make it easier. I used to use Spybot-S&D Malwarebites has been suggested above, Would this be recommended? Also on this note i think when Avast comes out with a version that does boot scanning then i will have to change to that.

Lastly I Plan on Doing a fresh install although i have no windows 7 disk. I will find out something. As i do need some of the hp 3rd party apps mostly the ones thats are to control the HP specific options and IDK of a better Burning program the HP OEM version of Cyberlink which works well. I have uninstalled as much HP branding software as i can without starting fresh (i do plan on doing it very soon). Sadly besides burning DVD's as backup i only have a 20 GB mini external USB HDD, Although that is enough space to store my Firefox profile, my Thunderbird profile, and anything else all of which will fit on this drive so i have no problem. I will use the resources posted above to hopefully pull the apps i want out of my Restore Partition or restore DVD's IDK how to do it yet so IDK.

Any More Tips anyone can give me? Also I have Windows 7 Home Premium I dont want to upgrade as i think i wont gain enough to spend the money to do it. I would have to be THOROUGHLY convinced. Although i wont need much convincing to use other apps epically free ones! I plan on using WMC as my main video player but i will install VLC (which i used to use on my machine With Ubuntu as my OS) as a backup if i have any issues with WMC, I Prefer WMC at the moment almost purely because of the fact it is 64Bit and i like that.

Lastly I have yet to find out if i need a new printer i currently own an HP ALL in ONE cx4400 and it is pretty old so I might have to shell out the $100 for a cannon ALL in ONE i saw at frys electronics, the cheapest "ALL in ONE" they have for sale that is marked on the box that it works with windows 7. I hope not but if it doesn't work their is nothing i know of that i can do besides getting a new one I also still plan on installing ubuntu on this machine although i dont know what method I will use.