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What are some free Windows server anti-virus and firewall programs that can be installed at Windows Server 2003?

The primary services of my server is to host PHP websites and a few VB.NET socket servers.

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um I'm creating this "accept-answer-in-a-week" tag. Will there be any punishment/bad-things-happened if I created a bad tag? – Unreality May 30 '09 at 8:02
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Every time you pick a bad tag, a kitten dies. – n3rd May 30 '09 at 8:03
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I'm sorry for the kitten. – Unreality May 30 '09 at 8:11
Bad tags = code comments = dead kittens. Save the kittens. brianstestsite.googlepages.com/comments.JPG – squillman May 30 '09 at 15:26

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7 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

Take a look at ClamAV and ClamWin. It's a free and open source anti virus solution that (unlike many other free versions of commercial tools) runs under Windows Server. One thing it lacks is an on-access scanner that checks files in real time. Guess you can't have it all ;-)

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up vote 6 down vote

OK, 5 steps.

  1. Windows updates - This is your number 1 antivirus on Windows
  2. Windows firewall - If you can't have additional firewall hardware this will do. Just learn how to use it via the command line.
  3. Backups - Sorry guys, but no antivirus is 100% effective.
  4. Clam AntiVirus - Nightly updates and full scans of your server with proper email alerts on update failures, virus detections and antivirus software failures.
  5. Monitor eventlogs and move them off the server- nasty things tend to either show up here or break them. Use one of many syslog daemons available for Windows to move the logs to a remote host. Phew.. The hoops we have to jump though.
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Sorry! but I couldn't help it. that's 5 steps. 5 helpful steps. =) – Jake Nov 30 '11 at 7:07
up vote 4 down vote

  1. I used the free version of MalwareBytes. It's exactly what I wanted in a virus scanner. It doesn't constantly run in the background hogging resources. You open the application and click scan. It properly removed a few viruses.

  2. If you are looking for a one time scan the only online virus scan that I am aware of that will run on Windows 2003 Server is Trendmicro's HouseCall.

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up vote 2 down vote

I was able to load Microsoft Security Essentials Vista/Windows 7 64-bit on a Server 2003 x64. Haven't run it for long, so I don't know yet if there are any issues regarding the platform mismatch, but it seems to install and run happily. Your mileage may vary.

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up vote 1 down vote

Okay, it is not real-time / on-access but it works: http://www.escanav.com/english/content/products/MWAV/escan_mwav.asp Free eScanAV Anti-Virus Toolkit (MWAV) / Free Antivirus Download for XP, Vista & Windows 7 I am using it (together with ClamWin) on wk28 (windows 2008 server: webserver role: SP2

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up vote 0 down vote

FORTICLIENT ENDPOINT IS GOOD FOR FREE ON WINDOWS SERVER 2003

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protected by Iain♦ Nov 14 '12 at 7:17

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