Using Forefront to Scan for Viruses

Using your Anti-Virus software to scan for threats is an essential action in keeping your computer secure. It is always good practice to run a system wide scan of your computer, so that the program is able to detect and remove any threats that it may find. On campus, we use and support Forefront as our anti-virus solution. To begin scanning your computer, look for the Forefront Icon in the system tray, located down in the bottom right-hand corner near your clock, and should look like one of these shields

	The Forefront client software completed a scan and did not detect harmful or unwanted software. Definitions are up to date.
	The Forefront client software issued a low or medium alert message. A low or medium alert message may indicate any of the following: Malware with a low or medium severity rating was discovered. Definitions are older than 7 days. A definition update failed. No scans were completed successfully in 14 days. A full scan is required. A restart is required. The software is not genuine. Please contact the helpdesk if this icon remains yellow for more than 2 hours.
	The Forefront client software issued a high or severe alert message. A high or severe alert message may indicate any of the following: Malware with a high or severe severity rating was discovered. The antimalware service is either stopped or in a not-ready state. Real-time protection is turned off. Antivirus protection is disabled. Antispyware protection is disabled. The FEP client software is an evaluation version, and the evaluation period has expired. Please contact the helpdesk if you see this icon for more than 15 minutes.
	The Forefront client software is busy performing one of the following actions: Scanning for malware Cleaning malware found by real-time protection.
	The Forefront client software is busy checking for updates or downloading updates.

Double-click on the icon, and you will see a new window. From here you can select the Scan button

Scan Button

This will bring up the scanning window, so you're able to view the progress of the scan.

Progress window

The time Forefront takes to run a scan will vary between computers, but it usually takes an average time of 30 minutes. You should still be able to continue working on your station while the scan is running. Once the scan is complete, Forefront will provide a list of what it has detected (if anything has been found). The items listed will have been deleted, cleaned, or quarantined already - and you should not need to do anything else unless the program prompts you to do so.