Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[crisoco8722]

You are very welcome.

Here is something else I have only just discovered about Norton Scheduled Scans that you might find interesting ........

When a Norton Scheduled Scan runs, a record is established in History / Scan Results. If you click on that record and look in the right hand panel it will either show in a bold black or blue type face the title Quick Scan or Quick Scan (or whatever scan you have scheduled). You will also notice that the underlined blue title has a hover link. When you click that link it will open the Norton schedule that you set for it to run. However, if the scan has been run from a Windows Task Schedule (like most of mine are) the title will be in black type face and will not be underlined and there will obviously be no link. This was how I found out that a scan which I had scheduled (in Norton) to run on the first day of each month was actually run today. I had scheduled the scan from Scan Now / Custom Scan / Edit Scan to run on the first day of every month but apparently because the first day had obviously been missed for this month it ran the scan automatically at the first opportunity. Presumably it will run the scan on the first day of next month but if for some reason that day also gets missed it will again run the scan as soon as possible afterwards.

Every day there is something new to learn.

We shall look forward to hearing what works best for you with NIS2012. Kind regards.

[Mr_Bear]

Thank you for that tip regarding Black or Blue link  - yes, there's alot for me still to learn with this new version.

I've taken this long to respond because I wanted to see if I could get that idle time full system scan to run on its own.  It did on both of my PCs.  I don't recall if I ever unchecked the check box for that scan (which earlier threads indicated might cause a problem), but it's checked now.

My saving grace may have been that I never created a "new" custom scan, but merely tried varying the time interval settings on the default scan.  I had since clicked the radio button for "run at an interval" (not sure of the wording, but it's the choice directly under "do not run this scan") and selected 7 days.  Sure enough, 7 days after I had run a manual full system scan, the idle time one ran - completed and listed as having occured during idle time.

So at this point, my concerns may not be justified - it looks like things are functioning the way they're supposed to.  Therefore I probably won't need to use the Windows Task scheduler (which earlier looked like it would be my solution).  I'd like to wait another week to confirm that those scans will run - and check the timing to see that if it wanted to run when the PC was not idle, it would wait until it was and then run the scan.

It's too bad I didn't take detailed notes of what I changed with the interval choices right after updating, and being more detailed with what did or didn't work.  But somehow, with my current settings, it looks like it is working.  Being used to NIS2011 running that idle scan every 7 days on its own, the other radio button settings really don't seem like I'd use them.

I'll post back again to confirm if my current settings continue to work, or if I find there's still an intermittent issue.  If all goes well, then I'll mark this thread solved.

Thanks again to all who replied and gave me advice and options complete with links to help me.

[crisoco8722]

Hi Mr Bear,

You are very welcome and thanks for reporting back. I hope that your scans work out as intended. Good luck.

[Mr_Bear · Accepted solution]

Idle time full system scan ran one week after the last scan on both of my PCs.  So it seems that, at least for me, things are working as they should - with the settings of "run at an interval" and using "7 days".

My advice to anyone having the problem of those scans not running by themselves would be to follow crisoco8722 instructions for using windows task scheduler - or just run it manually once a week.  Save a clean uninstall/reinstall as a last resort.

Thanks again to all of you who chimed in to help me.  I'm saving the links provided  - in the event I'll need them some time down the road.  I'll mark this thread as solved.