Scan for Malware on PC with Free Ikarus T3 Scanner

If you want to run a scan of your Windows PC for possible infection, then you can use Ikarus T3 Scan. It is a command line scanner which is both free and fast. This tool is also a very good candidate for your portable application collection. It does not require any installation and works in the good old fashioned manner. All you need is two files – one is the virus database file and the other is scanner application. It works on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

Here is how you can use Ikarus T3 Scan for finding malware on your PC:

1. Download all the files available from http://updates.ikarus.at/updates/update.html. There are two EXE files and one VDB file.
2. Create a folder C:\T3scan and copy the downloaded t3sigs.vdb file into that folder.
3. If you are using 64-bit Windows, then launch ikarust3scan_w64.exe and extract the files in C:\T3scan. If you are running 32-bit Windows, then launch ikarust3scan.exe and extract its files to C:\T3scan. The 32-bit version runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.
4. Open a command prompt window (Press Win+X and then select Command Prompt). Alternatively, you can also use Windows PowerShell.
5. In the command prompt window type CD C:\T3scan and press Enter.
6. Now you can type the command to scan a folder or drive. For scanning entire C: drive, you have to give the command ikarust3scan_w64 C:\ which will find all the possible malware and adware on your C: drive.

It will display a summary of the scan when the scan is complete – how many files were scanned and how many infected files were found. If you want to create a logfile containing this report, then you can append -logfile switch followed by the filename. For example, ikarust3scan_w64 C:\Windows -logfile C:\T3scan\logfile.txt. This command will scan C:\Windows and save the log into C:\T3scan\logfile.txt.

There are many more options when scanning files and folders, for example, you can turn off scanning inside archives (such as ZIP), scan a list of files only, turn off scanning of sub-folders, turn off scanning of adware or spyware etc. You can see all of these options by running the T3 scan tool without any parameters.

It must be noted that Ikarus T3 Scan command line tool can only scan and find malware. It does not remove the malware or disinfect the infected files. For disinfection, you may have to use their commercial antivirus software or use some other third-party software.