Hello,

My old Windows 98 computer developed a major functionality problem last year, prompting me to purchase a new Vista PC and to cancel my Internet dial-up service on the old machine.

Now I'm in the process of trying to get the old computer back off the sickbed, and I would like to load Spybot onto it. I had uninstalled Spybot last December, since it would no longer finish a scan, but after finally succeeding in doing some maintenance on the hard disk now the computer seems to be doing better -- so I'd like to try running Spybot on it again.

I should add that I have always suspected that the original trouble might have been due to some kind of malware: that's why I think there is still a purpose in installing Spybot on a machine that's no longer connected to the Internet. If I can find the malware and remove it, in theory I can put the computer back on the Web. I'd like to have that option again.

The trouble is, the old computer doesn't have an Ethernet port for my new High-Speed Internet service, so the only way that I know of to download and install Spybot on it is to download the program to the new computer and onto a CD-ROM disk, then put that disk in the old computer and run the installation wizard from there.

I've gotten as far as that, but now it turns out that Spybot won't scan. I keep getting an error message saying that, "You need to install the detection updates first by using the integrated update or the manual updates." Of course I can't do either of those, because the computer isn't hooked up to the Internet anymore.

So as I see it there are two theoretical possibilities: 1) I could download the updates from outside of Spybot onto the CD-ROM, and then manually copy them onto the appropriate Spybot folder; or 2) I could download the updates from outside of Spybot onto the CD-ROM, and then customize the "SDUpdate" program to look for the updates file locally instead of on the Internet.

What I wish to know, then, is: Will the first of these methods work? And, is there any way for me to do the second one, and if so, then how?

Thanks very much.

--JorgeA