A virus scanner by definition is a tool used to removed infections and malicious code from your computer. This means that the virus scanner gives you the ability to both scan for infections on your computer, recommended weekly, and remove the infections when found.
The first step that needs to be taken in order to start the necessary maintenance and securing of your computer is to download a virus scanner. The scanner can be any one of your choice but in this tutorial I will be showing how to use and update Symantec Antivirus, which is similar to Norton Anti-virus.
This is the login portion where you will enter your information.
Once logged in you will see on the left hand side of the screen, a navigation bar. One of the links listed there is for anti-virus resources.
If you click on this link then it should ask you if you want to purchase the University's anti-virus software, Symantec. This purchase gives you the software with a two year license for $17 which is a fraction of what you would pay if you bought it from a retail store.
Once you download and install the program then open it. You should see the following main screen:
From this screen you can both scan for and remove viruses along with keeping the scanner up-to-date. Keeping the scanner up-to-date before running scans is extremely important to insuring that you catch all potential threats on your computer. You will want to update the scanner before running any scans on your computer. This will need to be done as part of your weekly scans. To update the scanner look on the main screen shown above for the Live Update button:
Click this button and a screen pops up telling you what it will check for updates. Click NEXT.
The update manager will then find the update and install them this may require you to close and restart Symantec before the changes will take effect. Click FINISH when the update is done.
After you have finished the update then you will want to scan your computer. To do this, look on the main screen in the left hand corner where the menu options are located. Here you should find the scan computer option. Click on the icon.
It should pop-up the following screen. You need to click in the box next to my computer to select all of the areas for scanning. It is important to scan all locations as virus like to put themselves in unlikely places. Once you have all of the options selected then click on the scan button.
Symantec will scan all of the files on your computer and then list, when it is completed, all of the infections it finds. It will then quarantine anything that it finds. So you will want to go back to the main menu and select view. Under view you should see the option to view the quarantine. Select this option. When it displays the files in quarantine you want to select them and then click the option to fix or delete them. This will then completely remove the infection from your computer.
Following these steps should help you to clean-up and maintain your computer. If it finds a virus or malware that it can't remove then come to ResNet and we will assist you in removing the infection from your computer. It is import to keep your computer free of infections so that you can avoid computer crashes, loss of data and slowed computer speeds.