If you scan your pc for viruses using the administrator acct on XP, will all the user's acct be scanned to?

Question

Let's say you have a windows XP machine and you scan you administrator account for viruses and spyware, will all of the other user profile that I made be scanned too and if it does will it remove it too? Do I have to scan each user profile individually? Also if the other user profile caught a virus/spyware, will my administrator profile and other users be affected too? And how can I set my folders to be private? My windows XP won't allow me to check the checkbows that allows you to set ur file to private.. Thanks to all who replies !

Answer 1

It doesn't matter (much) whether you scan your computer from the administrator account or not. A virus scanner will simply try to scan all files on the computer, no matter which account they belong to.

Now, it is possible for a user to set the access controls of some of their files so that they are not accessible from other accounts. When a scanner attempts to scan them, it will fail too, and will report that the files could not be read. (Hopefully it will report it instead of failing silently - if it's a good scanner.) This will happen even if you run the scanner as an administrator. However, if you log in as administrator, you can change the access controls of these files (i.e., overide the user's settings), so that they become accessible during the next scan.

Finally, if the file system is NTFS, a user could encrypt some of their files. If they do that, you won't be able to scan them from another account. Again, that will be true even if you try to scan them as administrator.

So, to sum it up, it doesn't really matter whether you scan as administrator or not - you're likely to encounter pretty much the same problems.

Answer 2

Someone else answered the virus scanning question correctly, so I'll add a comment regarding private files. IF you are referring to EFS, then your drive *must* be formatted as an NTFS drive. Otherwise, you can't use EFS. Check the drive properties to see if it is NTFS.

Answer 3

Yes, all of your computers accounts would be affected since the virus would affect your hard drive, and also yes it will scan all accounts and clean the one that is affected, you can't set your folders to private sorry :(

Answer 4

Virus is not sth that destroy or harm you account , it's sth that harm you computer , so whenever you are going to scan your computer , it will scan every bit of your windows not only a part of your windows!

Answer 5

confident it is going to test ALL debts on the laptop offering you tell it to verify "my laptop" and confident it is going to locate and delete and or quarantine any undesirable stuff it unearths. To the final area of your questions "My abode windows XP wont enable me to learn the verify bins that enables you te set your records to private." you need to be on the admin account to try this. and you need to be on the optimal admin account if that enables. stable success