how long should a virus scan take

[Dude!]

every friday night the norton virus scan box pops up
and starts an automatic scan for 'viruses, spyware and other risks'
i usually hit pause and then forget to restart it
and then turn off the computer at bedtime

last night i decided to let it run overnight
so that it would be done by the time i woke up

but here it is 14 hours later
and it is still running
536,652 files scanned so far and still running

is it usual for these scans to take so long?

[biggestmexi]

every friday night the norton virus scan box pops up
and starts an automatic scan for 'viruses, spyware and other risks'
i usually hit pause and then forget to restart it
and then turn off the computer at bedtime

last night i decided to let it run overnight
so that it would be done by the time i woke up

but here it is 14 hours later
and it is still running
536,652 files scanned so far and still running

is it usual for these scans to take so long?

all depends on how much stuff you have on there and how thorough the scan is.

[cougarjake13]

my scans usually never last more than an hour

[Foster]

every friday night the norton virus scan box pops up
and starts an automatic scan for 'viruses, spyware and other risks'
i usually hit pause and then forget to restart it
and then turn off the computer at bedtime

last night i decided to let it run overnight
so that it would be done by the time i woke up

but here it is 14 hours later
and it is still running
536,652 files scanned so far and still running

is it usual for these scans to take so long?

sounds like you're scanning the entire internet

[instrument]

Any networked drives?

Ever empty your cache?

Ever done a full scan before?

How large is your hd?

[SP1!]

Sounds like you have all the settings for a deep scan and you very rarely scan, all that makes a difference.

[Dude!]

Sounds like you have all the settings for a deep scan and you very rarely scan, all that makes a difference.


Yes both are correct
i also realized that it scanned everything in my external backup hard drive
which i guess means it had to do about double the files

took 17 hours and 720,000 files scanned

no viruses found!

i guess i will do it more often from now on

[sailor]

yeah, just schedule it when you're not going to be on. can you set it upo to run the external at a separate time?

[scottinnj]

It's like doing a defrag. The longer you wait, the longer it'll be.

Schedule it for a night you aren't on the computer much, then let it run all night.