Issue of the week 9/30/09

I had a good question today from one of my customers

What is the background scan.

here is my response.

You should never use a background scan.

Ever…

Background scanning was a clever idea back in the day when VSAPI 1.0 was released.

You have a background scan running in VSAPI that goes through every file in your database.

Then when that file is accessed, if it has been scanned with the latest definitions it skips the scan on access and the file is allowed to pass.

Problem is.. back in 1999-2000 when that came out, virus definitions updated on average once a week.

Today you can have engines that update every 1-4 hours. And with 5 engines.. you get the point.

The scan never finishes and basically acts as a resource pit.

We support it, because VSAPI still supports it.