Spyware scanning with Bitdefender 9

On-demand scanning for spyware can be a lenghty process. In order to optimize it and ensure you have the latest spyware signatures, follow the steps described in this document.

Close all open programs

E-mail clients (Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.) will prevent scanning the messages stored locally. Running other programs during scan can affect the computer's performance.

Update to the latest spyware signatures

Verify the spyware signatures are up to date and update if necessary. The date of lastest update is displayed in the Update section.

Choose scan targets

Open Bitdefender, click Antispyware, then Scan.

You can select from 2 scan types:

• Quick scan: Selecting this option will scan against spyware only the registry entries, cookies, processes, and some system files.
• Deep scan: Selecting this option will let you choose what to scan against spyware.

The last option gives access to the following scanning methods:

• Scan processes: Scans all processes from memory against spyware.
• Scan cookies: Scans all cookie files against spyware.
• Scan registry: Scans all registry entries against spyware.
• Scan files: Scans all files in the specified locations against spyware. See next section.

If you want to perform a Deep scan and selected the option Scan files you can specify what files should be scanned:

• Add file(s): opens, a browsing window, where you can select the file(s) you want to scan.
• Add folder(s): same as above, but you select which folder(s) you want Bitdefender to scan instead of which file(s).

  You can also use drag and drop to add files and folders to the list.

• Remove item(s): removes the file(s) / folder(s) that has been previously selected from the list of objects to be scanned.

  Use this button to remove the files and folders added using the previous two buttons. The partitions added automatically by Bitdefender can not be removed.

Configuring the advanced scanning options

Clicking the Advanced option opens a window where you can configure additional scanning options, the actions to be taken on the infected and the suspected files, and the reporting options. It is recommended to leave these options as default.

We recommend maintaining the default options or configure them as follows:

Click the box with + to expand an option group or the box with - to fold an option group.

• Scanning options: Select all.
• Action options: Set the first action to Disinfect files and the second to None (log objects). Leave the action to take when a suspect file is found to the default options.
• Report options: Select Create report file to create a report with the scan results. If you intend to send later the scan report to Bitdefender clear the Show all scanned files option.
• Other options: To reduce the speed penalty during scan select the option Run the scan task with Low priority. To shut down the computer automatically after finishing the scan, select Shut down the PC when the scan is completed.

Click Default to restore the default settings. Click OK to save the current configuration, or Cancel to leave the settings unchanged.

Scan for spyware

Click Scan to start the scan. During the scan, Bitdefender displays the progress and alerts if any spyware are found.

The information is organized in four sections:

• Display information: offers information about the scanned files.

  Select Show last scanned file to dynamically scroll the file list to the last scanned file. The entire list is displayed only if the option Show all scanned files was selected in the advanced settings.

• Time: displays the time since scan start and an estimated time left based on the average scan speed (files/sec).

  The scan duration depends on the processor speed, the size and speed of hard disks, and the number and type of scanned files.

• Statistics: displays the number of scanned objects.
• Results: displays how many infected objects were found and how many actions were perfomed on these objects.

To pause the scan, click Pause; click Resume to continue, and Stop to terminate the on-demand scan. Click Show report to view a detailed report of the scanning results. Click Close to finish the scan.