Antivirus scanning for Outlook 2010

Scanning Outlook files

If you plan to use antivirus software to perform file-level scanning, you must make sure Outlook is not running during the scan. This is especially true for Outlook Data Files (*.pst) and Offline Folder files (*.ost), because they are the most frequently-accessed Outlook files. If you plan to perform file-level virus scanning while Outlook is in use, be aware that data corruption issues might result.
The same applies to other Outlook files such as *.oab (Outlook address book files), *.nk2 (Outlook nickname files), *.srs (Send/receive settings files),*.xml, outcmd.dat, and Outlprnt, although the possibility of this occurrence is significantly reduced because these files are accessed far less frequently.

Scanning email messages

Whether or not you scan *.pst, *.ost, and other Outlook files directly, we recommend that you scan email messages. You can scan email messages on either the email server or the Outlook client.

• To scan email messages that are on an email server you must use antivirus software that was developed to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail.
  
  
  • To scan email messages that are on the Exchange Server, use an antivirus software program that is Exchange-aware.
    
  • If your email messages are on an email server that is located at an Internet service provider (ISP), verify that the ISP is using antivirus software to scan incoming and outgoing email messages. If the ISP is scanning email messages on the server, it is still possible for an unwanted message to reach your email client. Therefore, we recommend that you also run antivirus software on the client computer. This allows the computer’s memory to be scanned, along with other types of files.
    
• To scan email messages that are on the Outlook client, use antivirus software that loads an Outlook add-in to scan email and other Outlook item types directly within Outlook.

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