Scheduling an AV Scan when PC is in Standby/Sleep

[laserfan]

The Devs may consider this a “well duh” but I only realized today after several weeks of living with CIS (wonderful utility–alot better than ZoneAlarm!) that it’s not doing the Scheduled Scans I’d requested, no doubt owing to my PC being in Standby at the scheduled time.

1. It was NOT easy to find this; the Summary screen doesn’t even show a “last scanned time/date” and I had to dig deep to find it in the logs

2. I could find no mention of the issue in Help i.e. “make certain to schedule a scan during a time when the PC is On”

3. There’s no advice to the user “you missed a scheduled scan” see #1 above

4. I know how to use Windows Task Scheduler to wake my PC ahead of my chosen Scan times, and will do so, but it would be nice if Comodo added such a capability to its “Scan Schedule” dialog e.g. a checkbox to “Wake the computer to perform this task”

Thanks for the great tool, now… make it even better please!

[HeffeD]

Moving this to the Wishlist.

[Citizen_K]

+1

[laserfan]

Thanks for moving my post–as a new CIS user I couldn’t be certain I’d not missed something that already was in the utility somewhere. Anyway for the record my workaround is:

1. Made a Notepad doc at C:\ and renamed to StartforAV.cmd, into which I typed:

cd c:
fsutil file createnew startedAVscan.txt 1

2. Went into Scheduled Tasks and Add-ed a new one called “Scan for Viruses” pointing to the StartforAV.cmd

Under Settings checked the “Wake the computer to run this task” as well as making sure to enter username & password etc.

Scheduled this task for one minute prior to Comodo’s schedule (in my case once a week on Sunday at 0100am, so my task is set for 1259am)

At the appointed time of 1259a every Sunday, the computer will awaken and create the file “startedAVscan.txt” and remain awake until Comodo wants to start one minute later.

I tested only that StartforAV.cmd worked, but am pretty sure next Sunday I will be golden…

[spasserfan]

If your computer is automatically going to sleep after a certain amount of inactivity, you should also be aware of this:

https://forums.comodo.com/wishlist-cis/av-option-prevent-computer-from-going-in-standby-when-a-manual-scan-is-running-t65894.0.html;msg463611

Otherwise your computer would wake up to start a scan, then go back to sleep and when you turn it on again it will continue the scan.

[laserfan]

@spasserfan post:5

If your computer is automatically going to sleep after a certain amount of inactivity, you should also be aware of this:

https://forums.comodo.com/wishlist-cis/av-option-prevent-computer-from-going-in-standby-when-a-manual-scan-is-running-t65894.0.html;msg463611

Otherwise your computer would wake up to start a scan, then go back to sleep and when you turn it on again it will continue the scan.

Thanks for the heads-up. Yet another Windows “let’s make programmers and users know how to do tricks-in-the-air before Sleep will work properly for them! We really don’t want Windows to help save energy!”

[fikio]

@laserfan post:4

Thanks for moving my post–as a new CIS user I couldn’t be certain I’d not missed something that already was in the utility somewhere. Anyway for the record my workaround is:

1. Made a Notepad doc at C:\ and renamed to StartforAV.cmd, into which I typed:

cd c:
fsutil file createnew startedAVscan.txt 1

2. Went into Scheduled Tasks and Add-ed a new one called “Scan for Viruses” pointing to the StartforAV.cmd

Under Settings checked the “Wake the computer to run this task” as well as making sure to enter username & password etc.

Scheduled this task for one minute prior to Comodo’s schedule (in my case once a week on Sunday at 0100am, so my task is set for 1259am)

At the appointed time of 1259a every Sunday, the computer will awaken and create the file “startedAVscan.txt” and remain awake until Comodo wants to start one minute later.

I tested only that StartforAV.cmd worked, but am pretty sure next Sunday I will be golden…

What does this step do:

cd c:
fsutil file createnew startedAVscan.txt 1

Is it not possible to just use the Windows Task Scheduler to wake up the computer and then have Comodo run thereafter? I’m assuming that this will still work even in the lid is down on a laptop? Thanks!

[laserfan]

@fikio post:7

What does this step do:

cd c:
fsutil file createnew startedAVscan.txt 1

Is it not possible to just use the Windows Task Scheduler to wake up the computer and then have Comodo run thereafter? I’m assuming that this will still work even in the lid is down on a laptop? Thanks!

The “create file” StartforAV.cmd was made just to give Task Scheduler something to start. Comodo is already running, and so I have Task Scheduler wake my PC and run StartforAV.cmd a few minutes ahead of the already-scheduled start time for Comodo’s AV scheduled scan. There may be a more elegant way to do this but I haven’t seen one anywhere.

If your laptop is only Sleep-ing with the lid down I see no reason why this shouldn’t work?

[fikio]

What is the difference in creating any task that will wake the computer? I made a task for the computer to wake up and start Notepad, and then set Comodo to scan starting 1 minute later but Comodo does not run when the computer is asleep (although Notepad does run). I don’t see the difference in creating a file, wouldn’t the computer go right back to sleep after this?

Thanks!

[Herb_Girard]

I can see I’m not alone in wanting to be able to schedule virus scans when my compuer is on standby or sleep.

I want to be able to use the Windows (7) Task Scheduler to wake up my computer and run the scan whether or not a user is logged on.

To do this, I would like to be able to pass a CIS AV Profile name to cavscan.exe and, optionally, the name of a result file.

Even better would be a success, warning and error entries into the Windows Application Log that I could use to trigger an email notification.