Run a Scan
The 'Run a Scan' area allows you to launch an On-Demand Scan on an item of your choice. The item can be anything you choose - your entire computer, a specific drive or partition or even a single file. You can also choose to scan a wide range of removable storage devices such as CD's, DVD's, external hard-drives, USB connected drives, digital cameras and more.
You have two main options available when from the 'Run a Scan' interface:
1. Scan a preselected area
2. Define a custom scan of the areas you choose
Scanning Preselected Areas
Comodo Antivirus has two pre-defined scan profiles - 'My Computer' and 'Critical Areas'. These cannot be edited or removed. They are:
- My Computer (Default) - When this Profile is selected, Comodo Antivirus scans every local drive, folder and file on your system.
- Critical Areas - When this profile is selected, Comodo Antivirus runs a targeted scan of important operating system files and folders.
Custom Scan
To run a scan on a particular item of your choosing, you first need to create a scan profile. To do this:
- Click the 'Create New Scan' button.
- Type a name for your new profile in the 'Scan Profile' dialog (for example, 'My External Drives').
- Click the 'Add' button to choose the files, folders or drives you wish to include in the scan profile. You can select multiple items.
- Click 'Apply' to return to the 'Scan Profile' dialog then 'Apply' again. Your new profile will be listed in the 'Run a Scan' dialog (see 'Create a scan profile' if you need more help with this).
- Select your new profile in the list and click 'Scan'.
| Tip: For more details on scan profiles, refer to section Antivirus Tasks > Scan Profiles. |
Scan Progress and Results
Before running the scan, Comodo Antivirus will first check for AV database updates. If updates are available they will be downloaded and installed.
The scan, based on the profile you selected, will begin immediately after updates have been installed. The progress dialog displays the profile name, the location that is currently being scanned, the start time and duration of the scan, the total number of objects scanned so far and the number of threats found.
Clicking the 'Pause' button will suspend the scan until such time that you click 'Resume'. Click 'Stop Scan' to abort the scan process altogether.
On completion of scanning, the 'scanning completed' window will be displayed.
- Click the 'Results' to view the results of the scan.
The Results Window
The scan results window will display the number of objects scanned and the number of threats (viruses, malware and so on).
You can sort the scan results by alphabetical order by clicking the 'Threat Name' column header. Similarly you can sort the scan results based on the risk level by clicking the 'Risk' column header. To select all the entries for actions such as moving them to quarantine or disinfect, select the check box beside 'All?'.
To save the Scan Results as a Text File
- Click 'Save Results' and enter the location in the 'Save' dialog box.
To disinfect a file or application
- Select the application from the results and click the 'Clean' button.
If a disinfection routine is available for the selected infection(s), Comodo Antivirus will disinfect the application and retain the application safe. If the disinfection routine is not available, Comodo Antivirus will move the infections to Quarantine for later analysis and restoring/removal of the files. For more details on quarantine feature, refer to Quarantined Items.
A confirmation dialog will be displayed for moving the threat(s) to quarantine.
- Click 'Yes' to move the infected items to quarantine.
To ignore an application / file you consider as safe from the threat list
- Select the application from the results.
| Tip: To select all the items at once, select the 'All?' checkbox at the top left of the interface. |
- Click the 'Ignore' button.
Once - If you click 'Once', the virus is ignored only at that time only. If the same application invokes again, an Antivirus alert is displayed.
Add to Exclusions - If you click 'Add to Exclusions', the virus is moved to Exclusions list. The alert is not generated if the same application invokes again.
Creating a Scan Profile
Scan Profiles are the user-defined profiles containing specific areas on your system that you wish to scan and can be re-used for all future scans.
To create a new scan profile
- Click 'Create New Scan' in the 'Run a Scan' interface.
A 'Scan Profile' configuration screen appears.
- Type a name for the scan profile to be created in the 'Name' box and click the 'Add' button.
- Select the locations from the left column, drag and drop to the right column or select the locations and click right arrow to move selected folders to right column.
- Click 'Apply' in the configuration screen.
- Review the items added. If you want to add more items, then click the 'Add' button again and repeat the process.
- Once done, click the 'Apply' button for the new scan profile to be created.
- Repeat the process to create more Scan Profiles.
| Note: You can also create new Scan Profiles by accessing Scan Profiles in the Antivirus Screen. |
Instantly Scan Objects
You can instantly virus scan virtually any file, folder, photo, application or hard-drive by clicking 'Scan Items with COMODO Antivirus' in the Applications menu.
You can simply drag and drop files or add files and folders using the 'Add File' and 'Add Folder' buttons located
on the right side of the interface and click the 'Scan' button.
After the scanning process is completed, the 'Scan Finished' dialog will be displayed.
- Click the 'Results' button to view the scan results.
- See the section 'The Results Window' to know how to deal with the infected files/folders.