Get Panda Cloud Antivirus installed in Windows 7

Panda's recently-introduced Cloud Antivirus generated a lot of buzz when it hit blogs like ours. It's certainly a good, free program for protecting your system from various nasties. It's just too bad that the installer craps out if you try and launch it on a Windows 7 system.

Well, there's a way around this, and it's not too complicated.

First, download Cloud AV and extract the contents of the .exe file. Any decent archiver should be able to do that for you. Since I use 7-zip (a free download), I just right click on CloudAntivirus.exe and choose 7-zip -> extract to -> "CloudAntivirus\".

Next, you need to utilize compatibility mode. Navigate into the newly-created CloudAntivirus folder and right-click on Setup.exe. Choose properties, and then click on the Compatibility tab. Check the box marked "Run this program..." and set the drop-down menu to Vista (I used SP2, but the other options worked, too). Click ok.

Now you're ready to run the installer. Click through the prompts until it completes, and voila! Panda Cloud Antivirus on Windows 7. Scanning worked flawlessly on my test system, and the realtime protection appears to be just fine as well.

While it works, Cloud AV obviously isn't fully Windows 7 friendly. If you're unsure, stick with another antivirus option until support is added!

Tags: compatibility-mode, freeware, panda-cloud-antivirus, windows-7, workaround