An archive is a file or a collection of files compressed under different formats to reduce the space on disk necessary for them to be stored. Some formats are open, which means that BitDefender can scan inside the archives and remove the threats found, other formats are partially or fully closed, so that BitDefender can detect the viruses inside them, but it cannot take any other action.
Although a virus stored in an archive is not an immediate threat to your system, it is recommended not to keep infected archives on your hard drive.
Here is how you can clean a virus stored in an archive:
1. Run an on-demand scan of the system to identify the infected archive.
2. You can choose from one of the available actions.
3. And we can see that the infected files were moved to quarantine.
4. From the log file, you can notice the path of the infected files, before they were moved to quarantine.
5. If the files are not sent to quarantine, you can retrieve them in your system, following the path indicated and run a full system scan.
6. Temporarily disable the virus shield (recommended: 10 minutes) and refrain from visiting any website or from running unknown applications during this time.
7. Decompress the archive using an archiving application, such as WinZip.
8. Identify the infected file and delete it.
9. Enable the virus shield and run a full system scan.
10. Password-protected archives require a password so that they can be opened and checked for malware. If BitDefender detects such an archive during scanning, you will be prompted to provide the password, as otherwise the scanning is not possible.
11. You can configure the real time protection settings by enabling or disabling the scan inside archives.
12. For this, from the Expert View go to the Antivirus section, Shield tab, Custom level, Scan inside archives.
BitDefender can also identify viruses in email databases and email archives stored on disk.
1. To clean viruses in these cases, scan the email database with BitDefender.
2. Disable BitDefender virus shield.
3. Open the scan report and locate the infected messages based on their identification information (Subject, From, To).
4. Delete the infected messages. Please make sure that the message is also deleted from the recovery folder some E-mail clients are provided with.
5. Compact the folder in which the infected message is stored.
OUTLOOK EXPRESS
a) Open Outlook Express.
b) On the File menu, click Folder, then Compact All Folders.
MICROSOFT OUTLOOK
a) On the File menu, click Data File Management.
b) Select the personal folders (.PST) files you intend to compact, and click Settings.
c) Click Compact, and then click OK.
6. Enable BitDefender virus shield.