McAfee AVDCDE-BA-CA User Guide - Page 161

Using the 5 VirusScan application 5 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. User's Guide 161