EZNEC Pro+ v. 7.0 FAQ

My anti-virus software says EZNEC Pro+ is infected with a virus. Is it?

No. The number of false positive virus reports has been steadily increasing for various files in all versions of EZNEC, including ones which have been in use and unchanged for many years. Web research shows that this is also affecting many other programs. (Search, for example, "false positive virus", without the quotation marks, with Google.) The cause is that anti-virus programs now include "heuristic" detection methods which use proprietary routines that attempt to detect unknown viruses rather than identifying known malevolent code. There also seems to be an effort in this competitive market to have a product "find" more "viruses" than competing products. The result is a large and increasing number of false positive virus warnings.

When false positives began appearing, I was able to contact the offending anti-virus companies to have them correct their routines to remove the false indications. Some were very responsive, some were not. Such a large number of products and files are now involved, however, that it's no longer possible to take this approach. One major program manufacturer didn't bother to respond at all when I contacted them recently, so apparently the complaints are too numerous for them to handle.

Extensive efforts are made to keep the machine used for EZNEC Pro+ creation clean and files free from any possibility of infection. If you feel uneasy about continuing to use EZNEC Pro+ following an anti-virus alert, I recommend that you submit the file in question to the anti-virus program company for analysis; some of them, at least, have a mechanism to do this. I would encourage those who see false positive indications to consider whether to believe other reports, both positive and negative, their anti-virus program is producing, and perhaps try some other company's offering.

How to install EZNEC Pro+ - Anti-virus programs more commonly interfere with EZNEC Pro+ installation than with the program itself, so successfully disabling anti-virus software during installation usually is all that's needed in order to use EZNEC Pro+. Unfortunately, some anti-virus programs not only flag non-existent threats, but also don't actually stop working even when you tell them to and when they say they have. If you're unlucky enough to have one of those, then the only way to insure that it's stopped is to start your system in Safe Mode, then install EZNEC Pro+ while running in Safe Mode. The steps required to start in Safe Mode changed with Windows 10, so please consult the Internet for instructions for your system.

I am sometimes asked for an anti-virus program recommendation. I've used ESet NOD32 for several years and have found it to be easy to use, unobtrusive, trouble-free, and relatively free of false positive alarms. At the other end of the spectrum, McAfee has consistently been one of the worst at generating false positive indications, deleting files without notice, and continuing to run even when supposedly disabled. I purchased a copy some time ago to test EZNEC Pro+ and was surprised sometime later to find that by agreeing to the normal legalese license agreement, I had unwittingly also agreed to let them automatically charge my credit card each year for a subscription renewal. So that is a brand I particularly do not recommend.

I have no control over the anti-virus programs, so can do nothing to prevent poorly designed ones from falsely identifying EZNEC Pro+ files as being infected.

How do I install EZNEC Pro+ on another machine, or reinstall it?

You need the file you downloaded when you initially installed EZNEC Pro+. This file is EZNEC_Pro#+_7NN_setup.exe where # is the program type (2 or 4) and NN is the revision number. For example, the first EZNEC Pro/2+ program was v. 7.0.1 and the installer file name is EZNEC_Pro2+_701_setup.exe. Copy it to the machine on which you want to install EZNEC Pro+, and run it. Be sure to back up this file.