From a Victoria Freenet user:

>       Do you know if Microsoft actually is supporting their anti-virus 

Did you use "support" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence?  :-)

>software? I am referring to the the old central-point software group's 
>CPAV stuff. MS issued it with Dos 6.0 and windows 3.1 & 3.11. What I am 

Ah, yes, I remember it well  :-)

>trying to find out with no success so far is if they make an updated 
>signature file available on the internet or something. There is no 
>mention at microsoft.com nor at ms's free BBS in seattle. So I am 
>beginning to suspect that they are not interested.  Am I right?

Right on the money.  Microsoft never announced any form of support for
MSAV: in fact, Central Point was busy taking out ads informing people 
that if you wanted support and updates for MSAV you were going to have
to buy (oh, yes, buy!) them from Central Point.

We know that Microsoft got MSAV from Central Point.  Central Point did
not, itself, develop MSAV or the parent CPAV: they bought it from an
outfit in Israel.  The rumours around the CPU are that CP was glad to
give MS the rights to the program for nothing, believing that they would
make a killing on support and upgrades.  The cynicism reached an all time
high when it was found out that Microsoft, itself, does not use MSAV.
(Microsoft has a world wide license for F-PROT.)

You may, however, still be in luck.  Central Point merged into Symantec.
On one of the four Symantec ftp servers, you may still be able to find
updates.  ftp://ftp.symantec.com/pub/dos/cpav has some files that look
like they may be signature updates or database files.

>       Thanks for taking the time to consider this.
 
Not at all.  However, I'd really appreciate it if you, in turn, would
consider a more effective and reliable antiviral product.  If Yisrael
Radai did nothing else in virus research, he will long be remembered
for his excellent evaluation of the faults of MSAV.
 
======================
roberts@decus.ca         rslade@vcn.bc.ca         slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
"If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on." - Richards' 2nd Law of Security
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)

[When I posted this on VIRUS-L, Nick reminded me that you will find a 
reference to Yisrael's paper at:

  ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/pub/virus/texts/viruses/msaveval.zip

and there are copies at many other AV sites and links on many Web pages.]