Dan Butler's
TNPC Newsletter

Optimal Norton AntiVirus 2000 Settings

by Lee Hudspeth

We've recommended Norton AntiVirus 2000 (NAV2000) to you before (TNPC #2.15). Numerous friends, clients, and family members have been after me to provide step by step instructions on configuring NAV2000. Here goes.

(Note: I'm running NAV2000 version 6.00.03.)

1. Always follow NAV2000's instructions and make a set of Rescue Disks. Do a test boot with them. Periodically update them.

2. Turn on the Auto-Protect feature. It's on by default, so don't turn it off. This feature runs in the background to detect any viruses or virus-like activity, whether that activity be from new files arriving on your hard disk or suspicious virus-like behavior such as writes to hard disk boot records.

3. Turn on the email protection feature. It too is on by default; leave it that way. As with Auto-Protect, the protection is worth the slight overhead incurred by these benevolent, low-level watchdogs.

4. Always let NAV2000 do a system scan at startup. Again, this is the default setting.

5. Increase the size of the Activity.log file from its default to at least 200 KB. This gives you a longer time frame across which to review logs for any unusual activity.

(Select Options, highlight "Activity Log" in the Options tree, increase the "Limit the size of the log file to..." control as desired, then click OK.)

6. Create a Scheduled Event to run NAV2000's LiveUpdate daily. So you've heard it's safe to update monthly or weekly. Wrong! I update DAILY. (When I originally wrote this article I recommended weekly updates; now I recommend daily updates -- LH, 12/27/01.) It takes only a few minutes and it's well worth it to keep your virus definition files--and any updates to the NAV2000 application itself--that fresh.

(Click the Scheduling button; click the "New Event" button, then follow the Norton AntiVirus Scheduling Wizard's instructions. Along the way choose the "Schedule LiveUpdate to update your virus protection" option. When you are in the Wizard panel where you assign a name to the event, if you don't want to see any prompts during LiveUpdate, be sure to CLEAR the check box "Notify me before LiveUpdate runs". Some folks like the former, fully- automated approach, others like the semi-automated approach whereby NAV2000 prompts you when starting the LiveUpdate so you can choose to continue now, reschedule, or cancel.)

7. Create a Scheduled Event for a full system scan every week.

That's it!

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you get NAV2000 right now, install it, configure it as above, and protect your PC assets from viruses and other malware. If you don't like NAV2000, fine, get a competing product, just make sure you're protected.

The links below are for ordering NAV 2000 on Beyond. Beyond is currently offering NAV 2000 for $39.99 and has some rebate offers on this product. As always, read any rebate information carefully for requirements and availability.

Norton AntiVirus 2000 6.0 for Win95/98/NT (on CD-ROM):
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/303/tr.cgi?nav2000cdrom

Norton AntiVirus 2000 V6.0 for Win95/98 (downloadable):
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/303/tr.cgi?nav2000dl