So far, we’ve focused on how to protect yourself from infected emails and attachments which arrive via email into Outlook. What about documents that arrive on a USB memory stick, instant messaging or other means?
There are both virus check and preview options available, similar to Outlook.
Windows Defender comes with all recent versions of Windows (including 7,9 and 10). It’s started with Windows and runs automatically. For most people, Defender is more than enough and there’s no need to pay for yet another anti-virus product (various marketing departments will disagree).
Defender should automatically check new files that arrive on your computer including a scan of external drives when plugged in. But it does the job so quietly, it’s hard to know if it’s done the job. You can right-click on the external drive and choose ‘Scan with Windows Defender’.
This will start a very quick scan of the drive. VERY quick, almost “blink and you’ll miss it”. At the end of the scan, Defender shows how many items it checked but, strangely, not a confirmation of what it checked (ie the name of the drive, folder etc).
You can also scan a single file or document, using the same shortcut.
The next step is to view the document without opening it in Office (which may trigger any virus payload in the document).
Windows Explorer is available to preview documents. Click on Home | Preview Pane.
This is similar to the Reading/preview pane in Outlook. However, the Explorer preview is controlled separately.
