New User With Questions on settings

Hey,

I installed the home edition last night. I have some questions:

  1. How do I set it up to do scheduled scans, say 8 p.m. every day? I could not find that option.

  2. I have it set to automatically update, that is a cinch. Should I set it for both auto database and program? I have it set for auto database and ask for the program.

  3. I have it set for thorough scan but I do not scan archives. Is that okay? I get errors when I scan artchives. Some nonesense about ZIP archives being corrupted and some other files being password protected.

  4. How can I automatically see a log of results after each scan? Where can I find such a log?

  5. What is the virus recovery database and why does my system say not done yet?

  6. Are there any tweaks or settings I should be aware of in order to get optimal protection?

I thank you all in advance for your help.

Hey,

I installed the home edition last night. I have some questions:

  1. How do I set it up to do scheduled scans, say 8 p.m. every day? I could not find that option.

The home ed. does not provide scheduled scans. That only comes with the pro ed.

  1. I have it set to automatically update, that is a cinch. Should I set it for both auto database and program? I have it set for auto database and ask for the program.

This would be your prerogative. I have mine to auto update the definition files and to notify when a program update is available.

  1. I have it set for thorough scan but I do not scan archives. Is that okay? I get errors when I scan artchives. Some nonesense about ZIP archives being corrupted and some other files being password protected.

Personally, I used to avoid archive scans but sometimes the virus is unzipped from an archive file, which Avast discovered only after I decided to allow the archive scan.

  1. How can I automatically see a log of results after each scan? Where can I find such a log?

http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=2389;start=msg17098#msg17098

  1. What is the virus recovery database and why does my system say not done yet?

The VRDB stores systems files every few weeks in case you have a virus outbreak. It’s an emergency file database. You can refer to your Avast help files for more technical information on the VRDB. Right click on the blue icon ball and select VRDB and makes sure it is not disabled. You can also force a VRDB update through this menu.

  1. Are there any tweaks or settings I should be aware of in order to get optimal protection?

For normal use the default settings should be fine but by double clicking the blue icon ball you can increase the protection to a higher level for each provider like the Standard Shield and the Internet Mail providers.

I thank you all in advance for your help.

Thanks Culperer. I pretty much agree.

About setting the resident-scanner sensitivity to High: this is something I would recommend to Windows 2000/XP users (I would because it really adds extra security as e.g. the Blaster worm is detected as soon as it hits the hard drive) but not relly for Win9x / ME users. The reason is that I’d be a bit worried about system stability then… :-\ The Win9x kernel somehow doesn’t really seem to like all those tricks that AV vendors use to do their job, and has the tendency to share this with the users (blue screens etc…) :slight_smile:

Vlk,…you mention the blaster worm… Isn’t that an exploit of a bug in Windows which can be easily solved if you download and install the patch. What I am trying to say is…even if you have installed the blaster-patch, can this virus still affect your harddrive? ???

Vik by putting it to high, does that compromise resourses any…i have Xp home…

thanks

About the Blaster: if you have the patch, the worm will not attack you (neither will save to your hard drive etc). I was talking about unpatched machines…

Vik by putting it to high, does that compromise resourses any..i have Xp home....

Not really… it does add some extra load on your machine, but if it’s a reasonable machine (let’s say at least a 800MHz machine with 128M of RAM for XP) you shouldn’t really have a problem…

We’re actually considering moving the current High setttings to the Normal config, and definining High as even thorougher…

Vlk

cool thanks vik…

Why do I get those errors when I scan archives? Especially the ZIP ones and the ones that say are password protected?

I will also make sure to increase settings for mail and other as suggested.

Well if it says they’re password protected, they most likely are password protected and that’s why it tells you so… ;D

The ZIP files says they are corrupted. How and why?

As far as password protecting, these are like Windows files, I don’t even know what password the software is talking about. Is this a safelty measure designed into windows?

I am having an old Pentium III 600 Mhz and i do not experience lower system performance if I put the Avast scanner on high instead off normal,… in fact all systems run at “high”,…

Pc configuration:

Pentium III 600 Mhz
640 MB ram (maybe this explains why i “feel” no difference)
20 GB harddrive
Windows 2000 Pro SP4