Using the Online Protection Dashboard
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Working With Anti-Virus
The Anti-Virus software detects and cleans dangerous computer viruses from your PC before they can damage your system or other networked computers. The software automatically scans files that you download onto your computer. To combat new threats to your computer, it regularly updates the information that it uses to detect viruses. Leave Anti-Virus turned on to ensure that you always have up-to-date antivirus protection.
If you suspect that your computer is infected with a virus, you can manually initiate a deep Anti-Virus scan. You can also set up the Anti-Virus program to run in-depth scans on a regular schedule, or to only scan some parts of your computer.
Here's How
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Launch the Online Protection Dashboard. (Remind me how.)
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Click the Anti-Virus application to open its display.
In the display you can see the last time an Anti-Virus scan ran.
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When Anti-Virus is turned on, it automatically scans any new files that are introduced onto your computer, for example, when you download new software. You can also run an in-depth Anti-Virus scan whenever you want by clicking the Scan Now button.
The Scan window opens and the scan begins. As the scan progresses, the window updates with information about any viruses found. See the Using Anti-Virus tutorial for more details about the information displayed in this window.
To stop a scan in progress, click the Stop Scan button at the bottom of the Scan window.
When the scan is finished, close the Scan window by clicking the Close button.
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Click the Edit Settings link to go the main Anti-Virus application window, where you can set up regularly scheduled scans and otherwise configure the Anti-Virus software. See the Using Anti-Virus tutorial for more information on using other Anti-Virus features.
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Anti-Virus is on by default. You can turn the Anti-Virus software off by clicking the Off button.
We recommend that you leave Anti-Virus turned on so your computer remains protected at all times.
What's Next
For more information about working with Anti-Virus, see the Using Anti-Virus tutorial.
Words to Know
- Scan: the process of checking files to see if they contain known viruses or other types of nuisance software.
- Virus: a computer program that attaches itself to other programs and causes harm to computer software, data, and/or hardware, often undetected until it is too late.