You can scan your entire computer to be completely sure that it has no harmful files or unwanted applications.
The full computer scan scans all internal and external hard drives for viruses, spyware, and potentially unwanted applications. It also checks for items that are possibly hidden by a rootkit. The full computer scan can take a long time to complete. You can also scan only the parts of your system that contain installed applications to find and remove unwanted applications and harmful items on your computer more efficiently.
To scan your computer, follow these instructions:
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- Open the product from the Windows Start menu.
- On the main view, select Tools.
- Select Virus scan options.
- If you want to optimize how the manual scanning scans your computer, select Change scanning settings.
Note: You need administrative rights to change the scanning settings.
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- Select Scan only file types that commonly contain harmful code (faster) if you do not want to scan all files.
The files with the following extensions are examples of file types that are scanned when you select this option: com, doc, dot, exe, htm , ini, jar, pdf, scr, wma, xml, zip.
- Select Scan inside compressed files to scan files that are inside compressed archive files, for example zip files. Scanning inside compressed files makes the scanning slower. Leave the option unchecked to scan the archive file but not the files that are inside it.
- Close the Settings window to return to the Tools page.
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- Select either Virus scan or Full computer scan.
- Virus scan scans only the parts of your system that contain installed applications and then locations where viruses are commonly found, including your document folders. It can find and remove unwanted applications and harmful items on your computer in a shorter time.
- Full computer scan scans all internal and external hard drives for viruses, spyware, and potentially unwanted applications. It also checks for items that are possibly hidden by a rootkit. The full computer scan can take a long time to complete.
The virus scan starts.
- If the virus scan finds any harmful items, it shows you the list of harmful items that it detected.
- Click the detected item to choose how you want to handle the harmful content.
Option Description Clean up Clean the files automatically. Files that cannot be cleaned are quarantined. Quarantine Store the files in a safe place where they cannot spread or harm your computer. Delete Permanently remove the files from your computer. Skip Do nothing for now and leave the files on your computer. Exclude Allow the application to run and exclude it from future scans. Note: Some options are not available for all harmful item types.
- Select Handle all to start the cleaning process.
- The virus scan shows the final results and the number of harmful items that were cleaned.
Note: The virus scan may require that you restart your computer to complete the cleaning process. If the cleaning requires a computer restart, select Restart to finish cleaning harmful items and restart your computer.
You can see the final results of the latest virus scan by selecting Open last scanning report.