AutoUpdate

[Viraj]

These are two basic very simple changes that can make a big difference.

1) In a lot of reviews and comparisons by other commercial competitor AntiSpyware software, lack of a built-in auto update function in SpyBot is highlighted. A lot of commercial software also distinguishes the free version from the paid version simply by adding an auto update feature.

This is actually possible with Spybot with a very small trick. Create a shortcut in the startup folder for SpybotSD.exe with the "/taskbarhide /autoupdate /autoimmunize /autoclose" switches. It works smoothly and flawlessly even with or without an internet connection. If there is no internet connection then obviously the update will not happen but no error message is displayed.

This is maybe simple for a techie guy but not to the general majority. This can easy be done at the time of installation by giving it as an option to check. Those who don't like an auto update feature can simply wait without selecting the option at installation.

2) If you close the system tray TeaTimer by right clicking then you can't start it again through the start menu. This is also a simple matter of creating shortcut for TeaTimer.exe under "Spybot" folder in Start menu.

The above two simple things could make a big difference to the general non-techie users out there which will probably make Spybot the No.1 choice for everyone and probably cause the competition to shutter. All it takes is creating two simple shortcuts at the time of installation. Please include the above two with Spybot 1.5 version.

[Whitt]

I have setup the following to run regularly on v1.4

/taskbarhide /autoupdate /autoimmunize /autocheck /autofix /autoclose

It runs and scans my PC fine.
However after it has run if I open spybot up and goto update I can still see updates which have not been downloaded and updated. I can manually update them but am unsure if the autoupdate should have been installing it instead.

[md usa spybot fan]

Whitt:

Go into Spybot > Update > Show Log. Check to see if the update actually started and if there were any failures during the update.

[Whitt]

ok Thanks

15/04/2007 5:13:42 p.m. Downloaded update info file. (http://www.safer-networking.org/updates/spybotsd.ini)
15/04/2007 5:13:47 p.m. downloaded update Detection rules: Trojans
15/04/2007 5:13:47 p.m. - URL: http://ftp.rz.tu-bs.de/pub/mirror/sp...es.trojans.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:47 p.m. - Local file: C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Updates\includes.trojans.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:47 p.m. - FILE REJECTED because of bad checksum
15/04/2007 5:13:54 p.m. downloaded update Detection rules: Update
15/04/2007 5:13:54 p.m. - URL: http://ftp.rz.tu-bs.de/pub/mirror/sp...s/includes.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:54 p.m. - Local file: C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Updates\includes.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:54 p.m. - FILE REJECTED because of bad checksum
15/04/2007 5:13:56 p.m. downloaded update ßDetection rules (beta)
15/04/2007 5:13:56 p.m. - URL: http://ftp.rz.tu-bs.de/pub/mirror/sp.../includesb.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:56 p.m. - Local file: C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Updates\includesb.zip
15/04/2007 5:13:56 p.m. - FILE REJECTED because of bad checksum

Maybe it had an error looking at log. Will see how next update goes.

[Snowdude]

ok Thanks



Maybe it had an error looking at log. Will see how next update goes.

"The files rejected..." tells me that the mirror site you chose was not working, and the file was not usable. This is fairly common, and it would be very helpful if, on receiving this message, Spybot S&D would try again from the next site.

[NerdsOfTech]

The update process, if the client is connected to the internet before each next retry (maybe have a setting for number of retries before timeout occurs as well to avoid infinite loops), once a retry is neccisary, should recursively loop through availible servers and attempt to retry downloading previously failed update download(s).