Excluding Files From Scans - Symantec 10551441 - AntiVirus Corporate Edition Client Manual

Excluding files from scans

Rarely, a file that does not contain a virus is detected as infected. This might
happen because a particular virus definition is designed to catch every possible
variation of the virus. Because the virus definition must be necessarily broad,
Symantec AntiVirus sometimes reports that a clean file is infected.
If Symantec AntiVirus continues to report a clean file as infected, you can
exclude the file from scans. Exclusions are items that you don't want or need to
include in scans.
You can also exclude folders if they contain software that can be detected as a
security risk, such as adware, and your corporate security policy allows you to
run the software.
See "About security risks"
Set exclusions separately for each type of scan: Auto-Protect, startup, user-
defined, scheduled, or manual, including Custom Scan, Quick Scan, or a Full
Scan. The procedure, however, is the same.
Warning: Be careful with exclusions. If you exclude a file from a scan, no action
will be taken to clean it if the file later becomes infected. This could be a
potential risk to the security of your computer.
To exclude a file from a scan
1 In Symantec AntiVirus, do one of the following:
For Auto-Protect of the file system, in the left pane, click Configure,
■
and then, in the right pane, click File System Auto-Protect.
For all other scan types, in the pane where you specify what to scan,
■
click Options.
2 In the right pane or Scan Options dialog, check the exclude files and folders
option.
3 Click Exclusions, and then click Files/Folders to select the file to exclude.
4
Click OK.
5 Click Extensions.
6 Specify the file types that you want to exclude, and then click OK.
You can use the ? wildcard character to specify any character. For example,
XL? excludes .xls, .xlt, .xlw, and .xla files.
7 Click OK until you return to the Symantec AntiVirus main window.
Protecting your computer from viruses and security risks
on page 14.
Excluding files from scans
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