Antivirus programs help prevent viruses and spyware from infecting a computer and therefore are one of the essential software programs each computer should have running at all times. There are thousands of viruses and spyware on the Internet, and any one of them can cause damage to personal files or the computer's operating system.
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If your computer does not have an antivirus program installed and running, we highly recommend you install one today. Follow the steps below for help on how to install and update an antivirus program on your computer.
Boot your computer from a CD or USB drive containing the antivirus and it loads a specialized operating system from the disc. Even if your Windows installation is completely infected with malware, the special operating system won’t have any malware running within it.
TipAll new versions of Microsoft Windows now include Windows Defender to help protect your computer from viruses.
To install an antivirus program on your computer, follow the steps below.
The antivirus program is now installed and ready to use. While it may not be required, we recommend restarting your computer so that any modified settings in the operating system can take effect correctly.
Out of the box, antivirus programs are not up-to-date and are missing the latest virus and spyware definitions. Without the latest definitions, the antivirus program will not know about the most recently created viruses and spyware, making your computer vulnerable to an infection.
After installing the antivirus program, we highly recommend you update it with the latest virus and spyware definitions. The updates allow the antivirus program to protect your computer from all viruses and spyware.
In many cases, the antivirus program automatically checks for and installs the latest updates. If prompted to do so, select Yes to update the antivirus program. If it does not prompt you to update immediately.
By default, most antivirus programs enable the automatic update feature. We strongly recommend automatic updates be enabled to keep the antivirus program up-to-date at all times.
To check if automatic updates are enabled in your antivirus program, follow the general steps below.