Subject: "Oh, but I have Norton Anti-Virus"
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 31 2001 - 10:39:00 GMT
[Warning: Cranky note that, as my mother used to say, is For Your Own
Good.]
Just a fast followup to what I just posted a short while ago. I got
a distracting phone call in medias res, and forgot to say this one
important thing.
You may have the anti-virus software. But are your virus updates
current? If not, in some cases, you might as well not have the
anti-virus software at all!
KEEP YOUR UPDATES CURRENT!
If you're using a modern version of Norton bought in the last year,
you're eligible for their "Live Update" service.
Sorry to sound like a harpy about this, but it makes me into a likely
stroke candidate when people tell me they bought virus software "one
or two years ago" and "never use it" or "never update it"! You might
as well have frozen the package it came in, put the frozen thing in a
blender, and made daquiris out of it!
I don't have a PC at hand, but if you have the Mac version, please do
this check: RUN NORTON ANTI-VIRUS (NAV) NOW!
When you run it, you will get a box on version 7.0. (It will be
similar, but not identical, with earlier versions; hint: you should
have the latest version. It's well worth the small amount of money!
The box will have a few little boxes-that-you-can-click on the right
side. One says "Preferences." One says "LiveUpdate." And one says
"View History."
To start, go to the Apple menu when you're in NAV, and a window will
open. It will give some information about WHEN the various parts were
created. At present, all the definitions should say 7/1/01. Those
parts are, on the Mac version 7.0:
AntiVirus Virus Defs file
AntiVirus Library file
virscan6.dat file
Antivirus Macro Scan Lib file
virscan1.dat file
If these are not dated 7/1/01, click the OK button. Then click the
LiveUpdate button. Then Click Customize This Update Session. You
should get a list of all Symantec products and whether you are current
on all of them. If not, try to update to the latest version of each.
Again, my version is current, so I can't give you blow-by-blow
instructions; sorry. But following your nose is pretty easy with this
software.
You may find that some (or all!) fail to update. That is because the
Norton people give you only one year of free updates. After that,
it's only either $3.95 or $4.95 a year -- well worth the price of an
overpriced coffee at Starbucks. (So you'll go to a diner for one
coffee fix! Believe me, you'll live!)
None of my Symantec products is out of date, so I can't walk you
through the update process, but it was fairly easy the last time I did
it.
The important thing is to do it. That way, you're protected. And we
all know how important that is. Please don't be a virus victim. It's
a lot worse than being a fashion victim, and people forget
fashion-victimhood a lot sooner than they than than they do virus
victimhood. With the latter, you're doing damage control A LOT LONGER!
--tim
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Sep 10 2001 - 15:29:40 GMT