hello all! first post here, and I hope this post doesn't belong in the security section.

my question is, if you have real-time protection on your Anti-Virus program, do you ever need to manually scan your drive as well?

I'm curious about this, cause I've made it a habit to scan my HD's occassionaly, although I have real-time protection activated.

Thanks for any clarification.

Norton AV 2003
Win Xp Pro SP1

Welcome to SAF!

Interceptor in the Security forum is our resident pro on these issues, so he'll probably add more to this, but I believe that an active background scanner checks all files as they are accessed or added to the drive. I know that this function tends to slow the system somewhat, so I never run an active A-V. Knowing which files are suspect, I only do a manual scan of them whenever I download one or receive certain items in e-mails. One of the biggest culprits in e-mails are the self-executing viruses that are activated by script files, so it's best to keep scripting turned off. It's seldom needed anyway. Norton has a freebie that will turn scripting on and off very easily.... Script enabler/disabler.

Even with real time monitoring and incoming file scanning, I still recommend you do a system scan once in a while. It doesn't have to be often, but once or twice a month is good. With today's powerhouse systems, the slowdown isn't really an issue.

Buuuut...this is just lil' ol' paranoid me talkin'.