McAfee AVDCDE-AA-AA - Active Virus Defense Suite, User Manual, Page: 161 / 344

5
User’s Guide 161
5
Using the
VirusScan application
What is the VirusScan application?
McAfee desktop anti-virus products use two general methods to protect your
system. The first method, background scanning, operates continuously,
watching for viruses as you use your computer for everyday tasks. In the
VirusScan product, the VShield scanner performs this function. To learn more
about the VShield scanner, see
Chapter 4, “Using the VShield Scanner.”
The second method puts you in charge. You decide when and where the
software should look for viruses, then you tailor and run scan operations that
suit your needs. You can run successive or concurrent scan operations, create
different settings and specify different scan targets for each operation, and
save your settings in exportable files for future use.
You might also see other materials identify this second method as
“on-demand scanning.” The term “on demand” means that you as a user
control when the application starts and ends a scan operation, which targets it
examines, what it does when it finds a virus, or any other aspect of the scan
operation. Other VirusScan components, by contrast, operate automatically or
according to a schedule you set.
The VirusScan name applies both to the entire set of desktop anti-virus
program components described in this
User’s Guide , and to a particular
component of that set: SCAN32.EXE, or the VirusScan application. The
VirusScan application operates in two modes:
•
The VirusScan “Classic” interface
. This mode gets you up and running
quickly, with a minimum of configuration options, but with the full power
of the VirusScan anti-virus scanning engine;
• The VirusScan Advanced interface . This mode adds flexibility to the
program’s configuration options, including the ability to run more than
one scan operation concurrently.
This chapter describes how to use VirusScan software in both its Classic and
Advanced modes.