Schedule avast scans/updates under administrator account or (main) user account?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I am using Windows XP, with most of my usage using a power user account. I resort to a local administrator account for system maintenance purposes (installs, updates, etc.). Ideally, this is a miniscule portion of the time, though lately, it’s been most of the time because I’ve been spending alot of time trying to figure out the setup of automatic malware scans.

Avast allows users to set up scheduled scans and updates without resorting to the Windows Scheduled Tasks. Should I set up these scans under the local admin account or the user account?

There are several factors that make the answer unclear to me.

  • If I spend most of my time using a nonadministrator account, perhaps that is the account under which scans should occur. Presumably, the scan is guaranteed to have access to all things belonging to the user account (files, registries maybe, other Windows-type things with which I am unfamiliar).

  • However, other malware scanners such as MalwareBytes are able to scan nonadministrative user content, even though the administrative account cannot browse the file system of the nonadministrative account (I’m not sure what makes this possible, but it happens). MalwareBytes recommends scanning with an administrative account, presumably it has greater access rights to scan a greater portion of the computer’s content.

Thanks for advice on best practice for Avast scheduled scans & updates, and in particular, a layman’s version of the reason (if possible).

2

Please go to PROFILE then Modify Profile then Forum Profile Information then select your country in Please select your country: then update your Signature: with information like my signature as this helps the helpers offer pertinent advice.

3

OK, here it is.

4

I do not use limited user account to schedule scans nor updates as it has very limited capabilities.

I have no scans sheduled as I find the resident protection of avast! very good but I do run a Quick scan at each avast! program update.

5

It doesn’t matter under which account you set up the scheduled task - it will always be executed inside of avast! service, i.e. under the LOCALSYSTEM account.

6

Great! Thanks!