When do I need to perform an anti-virus scan?

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal can perform an anti-virus scan of your entire computer or of a particular disk, folder, file or e-mail object.

During a full computer scan, the program does not scan removable drives and network drives (if such are connected to your computer).

Even if, as a result of an on-demand scan of selected objects, no viruses are found, this does not guarantee that your computer is virus-free. Therefore, Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal always checks whether your entire computer has been scanned for viruses.

During a full scan, the program scans more objects stored in your computer than it does in the real-time protection mode. Therefore, it is recommended that you scan your computer at least once a week, as a preventive measure. The program will remind you when it is the best time to start a full scan. If the main application window is closed, a message with a recommendation to start a full scan will appear above the Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal icon in the system tray (if pop-ups are not disabled, see section Additional settings of Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal).

For more detailed information, open the main application window and see the full scan status in the right section of the Protection tab. The following full scan statuses are provided for:

- It is extremely important that you perform a full computer scan now.

- You should perform a full computer scan now. You may also need to restore settings recommended by Kaspersky Labs experts before you start the scan.

- A full scan is performed on a regular basis or is currently being performed.

If required, you can also start a full scan directly from the full scan status area by following the perform a full computer scan link.

Kaspersky Labs experts recommend that you schedule a full scan to start automatically (see section Scheduled full scan). The full scan status indicates whether the scheduled scan mode is enabled.

Information about the necessity of a full scan