Scan settings to be used

After you install Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal, any scan (full computer scan, scan of specified objects or removable drives) will use settings recommended by Kaspersky Labs experts. The status of the current scan settings are displayed in the right section of the Settings tab of the main application window using the following icons:

If necessary, you can change the default settings. You can change the protection level and specify actions you wish the program to perform upon the detection of an infected object or an object possibly infected with a virus or its modification.

Note that the protection level and other settings that you assign will APPLY TO ALL types of scan, including full scans of your computer and scan of selected disks, folders, files, etc.

If you exclude, for example, a particular disk from the scan scope (see section Troubleshooting on-demand scan) then this disk will not be scanned when you select it for an on-demand scan (see section On-demand scan of selected objects). The only exclusions from this rule are Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express mailboxes. If selected, they will be scanned, regardless of whether or not you have excluded them from the scan scope.

In order to change the protection level and/or program actions upon detection of an infected object, malware or an object that is possibly infected with a virus of its modification:

Click modify settings in the right section of the Settings tab or Configure On-Demand Scan in its left section.

In On-Demand Scan settings window that opens after you click the above link, select a desired scan level that defines the reliability of your computer anti-virus protection. The default level is Recommended. You can change it by moving the Scan level slider up or down. Below is a discussion of all available protection levels along with situations when the use of a certain protection level is preferable:

Maximum protection - thorough scan of the entire computer or a particular disk, folder or file.

We recommend that you use this protection level if you suspect that your computer has been infected by a virus. A detailed discussion of infection symptoms is provided in section Symptoms of infection.

We recommend that you use this protection level in most cases as it ensures an optimal combination of scan speed and of the number of scanned objects.

This protection level ensures scanning at maximum speed due to a reduction in the number of objects to be scanned.

The table below contains a list of all objects that may be subject to an anti-virus scan. The + sign indicates that the object will be scanned if the corresponding protection level is selected, while the - sign indicates that the object will not be scanned.

	Maximum Protection	Recommended	High Speed
Area selected by the user	+	+	+
Disk boot sectors, RAM	+	+	+
OLE-objects	+	+	+
Packed files	+	+	+
Self-extracting archives	+	+	+
Objects executed at the operating system startup	+	+	-
Archives	+	+	-
MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express mailboxes	+	+	-
E-mail databases and messages	+	-	-

For each of the above protection levels, you can specify exclusions - a list of objects that will not be scanned. However, we recommend that you specify such exclusions only if you encounter problems in the work of Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal, for example if your computer has slowed down considerably.

Specify actions that you wish the program to perform each time on detection of an infected object, malware (a worm or a Trojan program) or an object that is possibly infected with a virus or its modification.

Prompt user for action - ask user about the actions to be performed on objects during the scan. The program will display a list of possible actions that may be performed on the object. One of these actions will be recommended by Kaspersky Labs experts. Select this mode if you are staying at your computer during the scan.

Perform recommended action - perform an action recommended by Kaspersky Labs experts. Since the recommended actions are always well justified, you can select this mode in most cases. The recommended actions may be as follows:

Sometimes, after a file has been quarantined, a message appears notifying the user that the object cannot be deleted. This is related to the fact that the process of quarantining objects involves physical movement of the object to the quarantine folder and deletion of the object from its initial location. However, some objects (for instance, objects contained in a self-extracting archive) cannot be deleted during such a process.

Delete infected objects - delete infected objects detected during the scan without making an attempt to disinfect them and without asking user's confirmation. This mode is recommended only if you are certain that you will not lose any valuable information.

Write information to log file - the program will only report infected and suspicious objects found during the scan but will not perform any action on such objects. This mode is not recommended for most cases because all the infected and suspicious objects will remain in your computer, thus making the spread of infection virtually inevitable.

In some situations no action can be performed on an object, for instance, if an infected object is being used by another program at the time of detection and therefore cannot be disinfected. In this case, a message will be displayed with a suggestion that you:

disinfect at system startup. This action will be listed only if this object can be disinfected;

delete at system startup;

skip - do not perform any action on the object, only report its detection in the program report.