I’m running NIS09 and after booting up this evening it told me I was ‘At Risk’ and offered to ‘Fix Now’.
Is there any way I can find out why it thinks I am at risk without hitting ‘Fix Now’? In the end, I did hit ‘Fix Now’ and it tried to run a quick scan, but I’d prefer to know why it thinks I’m at risk (and hence what it’s planning to do) before requesting it be fixed! After all, I’d like to know what it’s about to do.
Also, is there anywhere I can get more info about the thresholds after which NIS09 considers me to be ‘At Risk’? When I booted my PC today (2nd March) and it was telling me that I was ‘At Risk’, I checked and found that my last Live Update and Pulse update were on 26th Feb, the last quick scan was on 24th Feb, and the last full system scan was on 13th Feb. I’m pretty sure, in this case, that the reason for the alert was the quick scan (as that’s what it tried to do when I hit Fix Now). This seems a change in behaviour compared to NIS06 which I don’t remember complaining about delays in doing a quick scan.
Thanks,
J.
Hi jiffle
Were you connected to the internet at that time?? When you are not connected for 3-4 days it comes up in the system tray at risk because it has not recieved its updates etc,I then would manually update it.
Check if there is a problem with live update. hope this helps
Hi J,
Whenever your Norton program encounter any critical issue that can be harmful for the protection of the computer, it will display the "FIX NOW" button. Norton 2009 products have application intelligence baked in, allowing it to make security decisions so that you don’t have to. There are two possiblilities in your case:
- When it found that Quick Scan has not run for 1 week and Full System Scan has not run for almost 2 weeks, the integrated Auto-Fix technology detected it as a threat to the protection of your computer and prompted you to fix.
- When the AutoProtect suspects any possible virus infection in the computer and to confirm/check this you have to run Quick Scan. So it prompted you with FIX NOW button to run Quick Scan.
One way you can find the risk is by checking in the History. You may be able to spot some reason for the FIX button - any error, security risks, intrusion attacks.etc. There is no possible way to find out what is the exact risk other than checking in the History or clicking the FIX button.
Yogesh
Thanks Yogesh
I'm wondering did jiffle manage to do a scan,he does not say and was anything found?
Hi Mo,
Even I want to know the same, as Jiffle has provided an incomplete information.
<< In the end, I did hit 'Fix Now' and it tried to run a quick scan >>
We have to wait for a reply from Jiffle to know the result - whether issue got fixed by running the Quick Scan and whether the Quick Scan detected any threats. We can thus determine the exact cause of the issue.
Yogesh
I’m running NIS09 and after booting up this evening it told me I was ‘At Risk’ and offered to ‘Fix Now’.
Is there any way I can find out why it thinks I am at risk without hitting ‘Fix Now’? In the end, I did hit ‘Fix Now’ and it tried to run a quick scan, but I’d prefer to know why it thinks I’m at risk (and hence what it’s planning to do) before requesting it be fixed! After all, I’d like to know what it’s about to do.
Also, is there anywhere I can get more info about the thresholds after which NIS09 considers me to be ‘At Risk’? When I booted my PC today (2nd March) and it was telling me that I was ‘At Risk’, I checked and found that my last Live Update and Pulse update were on 26th Feb, the last quick scan was on 24th Feb, and the last full system scan was on 13th Feb. I’m pretty sure, in this case, that the reason for the alert was the quick scan (as that’s what it tried to do when I hit Fix Now). This seems a change in behaviour compared to NIS06 which I don’t remember complaining about delays in doing a quick scan.
Thanks,
J.
Sorry guys I should have given more info. I had not used the PC for a while, hence the last were updates on 26th Feb (from when I was last online). I ran the Quick Scan and it was happy (did not report any problems). Hmm, now let's respond to each of the above posts (thanks for the responses).
On the PC in question, LU is turned on but I plan to run it with LU turned off - and run it manually (a) once a week *and* (b) before I go online or download / transfer files (Which I rarely do on that machine since I try to keep it clean). Whether that's good or bad practice is another matter, but I like to have some control of what's happening. For example yesterday I ran Ghost, and after 10 mins NIS kicked in to start doing things which was a pain since I wanted my machine idle during the Ghost process (for greater reliability of the backup). I raised the NIS idle timeout to 30m (max allowed) and kept moving the laptop mouse to stop NIS from doing stuff.
I think NIS06 used to require full scans every 3 or 6m? A full scan of my laptop takes 50-60m. Is it really required every 1 or 2 weeks?? I can't see there being enough idle time for that, and I don't think my Kaspersky does that [although just because Kaspersky doesn't do something, doesn't mean it's okay not to do it].
What I'm thinking about here is my dad, since i keep an eye on his PC for him, and he's not really a techno wizard. I don't think I can really expect him to run manual full scans every 1 or 2 weeks, and I don't see how there'll be enough idle time for that to happen otherwise. Previously I used to run full system scans when NIS06 required it.
So, yes, I can see that I was around 5d out of date for updates, and 7d out of date for a quick scan. I can understand a warning for 5d signatures but was surprised by the 7d one for a quick scan. If quick scan is important, why isn't it enforced at bootup rather than waiting for idle time?
I did check the history to try and find out why it thought I was at risk, but it wasn't clear. NIS06 was good because it would say something like "You have 2 issues" and then list each one, and let me choose what to fix. For example, imagine I have Windows Update turned to Notify so that I can evaluate the patches and apply in a controlled manner? Then imagine I have a tool that checks my Windows and doesn't like that choice I've made. If it just says 'At Risk' and 'Fix Now?' but without saying why. Imagine if that product then set my Windows Update to auto download/install?! That's why I'm nervous about NIS09. Imagine in the future I don't want to run live update for a while (doesn't matter why - please just go with it for an example), and one day NIS09 determines (a) i need to run live update (b) i need to run quick scan (c) something else needs doing too. When it just says 'At Risk' and 'Fix Now?' I don't want to agree since I don't want (a), but I have no idea what else it wants to do. I think, going from NIS06 listing what needs fixing and giving me choices, it's a shame now to have so much hidden behind the scenes.
So... in summary, yes, I can understand warnings for old defs (I'm used to that from Kaspersky, which even goes so far as to use the word 'obsolete' if I've been away on hols), but - having been used to NIS06 - I was surprised that it would complain that a quick scan hadn't been run for 5d. Also, if quick scan is important, and if it's quick, why isn't it run regardless at bootup? Also, are people really doing full scans every 1-2 weeks? Even if it takes around an hour?
Thanks,
J.
Hi jiffle
I took my laptop on a little holiday,While staying with relatives I had to share a internet connection,I did not know about the Fix it/at risk with the liveupdates until it appeared in my system tray.That's how I found out about the 4 days(I think) if you are not connected to the net the at risk appears.So I had a schedule of running(manually doing the updates or letting NIS do it's own thing) it every 4 days just to get the updates then NIS was a happy little camper.I think possibly the quick scan reminder or insistence is just a reminder as well.That does not bother me.
As a new comer to NIS2009 and any security suite I would scan everyday!!! Yes excessive but I had to grow to trust that NIS protects me.Now I scan maybe once a week.I think you know your own surfing habits if you do very little like me you could do the scans further apart etc.That's only my opinion of course and you have to take into account my lack of experience as a PC wiz
There is a option in NIS called silent mode which you can set from 1hr,2hr,4hr,6hr which keeps the background tasks to a minimum(or switches them off sorry a bit fuzzy on that)I use silent mode when we play AOE3 You right click the system tray icon and click on silent mode .
Thanks Mo. Yes, a holiday is what led to me encountering those messages! I dug around a bit on the Internet and found the following, although don't know whether it's accurate or reflects current processing logic:
For NIS 2009, quick scans are set to run via idle scanner every 3 days while full system scans are set to run via Idle scanner every 7 days. If at the scheduled time the system is not considered to meet idle requirements, the scan in question will run as soon as the system becomes idle. If a quick scan is running during idle and the system becomes active it will continue to run until completed. However, if a full system scan is running during idle and the system becomes active, the scan will be suspended until the system enters an idle state again at which time the scan will continue from where it left off.
which I found very interesting because it mentions when quick scans are scheduled, and how interruptions to quick and full scans (initiated during idle time) are handled.
I'm not sure whether silent mode stops idle tasks, or simply avoids asking/telling the user what it's doing. I think from memory it reverts to automatic program mode, if the user had requested alerts instead, so background activity may still happen. Maybe next time I want to run Ghost or have a truly idle system for a long time (when i'm offline and not reading or copying any USB sticks or other media, so there's much less of a threat) I'll take a look at the tray icon options for temporarily disabling NIS. Mind you, I still think it would be good for NIS09 to tell me exactly what it plans to fix..