One of the biggest selling points to me of NIS 2009 was reviews saying it had an excellent Custom Scan feature. I need to know which sections one can safely exclude and include in a full scan - including the index.dat folders. I've searched the help utensil without without finding any guidelines.
I'm very unsure as to how viruses work and invade parts of a computer, or more to the point, where they can hide. My second area of total ignorance and bewilderment is regarding what sort of areas i can safely have Norton IGNORE and which areas MUST be scanned.
Before the full scan i empty temporary internet files etc., i even defrag the disk. I leave the computer alone during the scan. Apparently i haven't got any viruses. The computer itself runs blisteringly fast in all aspects be it internet, or video and music editing and it's a dual core processor. Despite that, my Full Scan was taking 11 (ELEVEN) hours and increasing in duration every single week.
I noticed that the vast majority of the full scan was spent on the the hidden index.dat folders - which can't be emptied easily by a long chalk. I stress i don't mean the ones that you can delete quite simply in internet options. I refer to the ones that build up on your computer from the very first day to the last day ever of your computer's internet browsing. They are located in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\. After deleting them using a third party programme (ccleaner) my scan is now only taking just over an hour. The longest part now is the 'C:\WINDOWS\Temp\vlt' section.
Hopefully, there are enough sages on here to answer the various questions below which will undoubtedly help many, many people who aren't deeply versed in internet security workings and terminology.
1. After deleting the colossal index.dat hold up the full scan takes a fraction of the time. But, am i right to take it that under no circumstances whatsoever, can i prevent Norton from scanning the index.dat files as viruses would likely lie in wait or operate from there?
2. Or is it a case of once the index.dat folders have been initially scanned upon installation, the now permanently active NIS stops bad stuff from ever entering them and they will always be clean? Meaning therefore, even when they do build up to enormous levels it won't matter as they can be excluded from scans.
3. Can i exclude C:\WINDOWS\Temp\vlt on the same basis of, having been scanned once, they are always clean due to live NIS?
4. What about my own photos and music and video files that are not downloaded from the web, or those that have come from the web but been scanned and cleared at the time?. As of right now every photo, video and music file on my computer is clean. Bearing in mind that Norton is always on so if i download any new media from the web that is infected i would get alerted in real time, can i allow for all my video, sound and image files to be bypassed?
5. Does Norton scan the MCE tv recordings which today for example account for some 8GB of disk space?. If so, surely i can exclude them from the scan?
6. If a virus enters the computer can it invade a previously clean file such as a picture, video or word document etc.? If so, surely that means one must always run an out and out full scan?
7. I have read the help section but i'm struggling with the wording of some of it. I understand that one is supposed to be able to set it not to scan files if they haven't been changed. But, if i say edit a photo in paint shop pro meaning the file has been changed, would Norton just scan that individual photo/file or would it plough through the whole folder or directories of all photos?.