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How to install McAfee Antivirus known as McAfee VirusScan

 

Before saying anything, I would like to specify that the name of this article is called "how to install McAfee Antivirus" because the name of this antivirus is "McAfee VirusScan Plus" and he is by definition another antivirus program and I want to avoid any confusion. I think I have covered a basic "how to install" article for each major antivirus. I mean all major, popular antiviruses ( doesn't matter if they are freeware or shareware ) that has more than 80 % from the antivirus market. However, McAfee is the one that was never included on this web site until now. Like any other major antivirus company, McAfee has three major products. There are others but I will mention here only those who offers antivirus capabilities. So there are three major products : VirusScan Plus, Internet Security and Total Protection. In this article we will talk about McAfee VirusScan Plus. This is the antivirus solution while the other ones comes with more features compared with McAfee VirusScan Plus, this one should be more easy to install and configure. Let's start to say that you will need to obtain the latest antivirus version so you can always download McAfee VirusScan Plus from here and that you will need an Internet Connection to install this antivirus. As you may notice, instead of downloading the entire setup file you will download only a small setup file on your computer. It will look like in this picture :

 

 

Right away a new window will open and it will ask you to enter an "E-Mail Address" and a "Password". Before using the McAfee VirusScan Plus version for a 30 trial days period you will need to register at this address :

 

https://home.mcafee.com/Secure/Protected/Login.aspx

 

Right in the middle of the window you should see a small window that says "Are you a new user ?" and right there is a blue button called "Register Now". Click on that button and you will be redirected to a new window were you will need to enter your :

 

First Name:
Last Name:
Email Address:
Choose a Password:
Re-enter Password:

 

...and finally you will need to read their privacy policy and if you agree to click on the blue button called "I Agree". That's it, now you need to enter your e-mail address and your password on this window and press the "Next" button :

 

 

 

If the e-mail address and the password was good you should see a second window that says : "Select the product that you want to install. If available, click Customize to install some programs in the suite, but not all". You will also be able to customize the antivirus installation and you will be able to see the expiration date. Since I am using a trial version you can see that I have only 30 trial days. After this period ends I will need to purchase a licence. Since we do not want to configure this antivirus ( this article covers a basic installation and it was made for beginners ) we will click on the "Next" button.

 

 

It was not necessary to provide a screenshot with this window but this is another step by step article and I am trying to cover all steps. Here it is the antivirus that started to download the needed files on your computer. As you can see, this window will show you the downloaded size, total size, estimated time left and the average speed. Depending on your Internet Connection speed you may experience a better or a lower speed so please be patient.

 

 

Here it is a part that will slow down your computer ( depending on your PC performance ). As you can see there is a window that says "We're quickly scanning your PC for threats and will attempt to automatically remove any infections. If we can't, we'll let you know how to clean your computer and continue your installation." You will need to wait for this window to finish scanning and then to press the "Next" button.

 

 

Again, another window that downloads other additional programs for this antivirus. You will have to wait for them to download on your computer and when the download finishes it will automatically change to another step.

 

 

As I said on the previous step. When download finished, that window automatically changed to this one that will start to install all the programs that were downloaded on your computer. As you can see in this window it will install "Security Center", "VirusScan", "Personal Firewall" and "SiteAdvisor". Again, there is no button, when all these programs will be installed this window will change to another one automatically. You will need to be patient since it may take a couple of minutes depending on how fast is your PC.

 

 

After the installation you will see this window that says "Please help us improve our products by letting us collect anonymous scan, firewall, and usage information from your computer. Don't worry, no personally identifiable information is collected.". This is a "normal" step since many antiviruses use this method to collect all kind of informations about viruses, crashes, bugs etc. As you can see I chosed to let allow McAfee to send anonymous usage information back to their servers.

 

 

Now you should see this window that says "We're optimizing your protection and firewall settings". Be patient, it takes a couple of seconds or minutes and you don't have to click on any button.

 

 

Another window informs us that the antivirus is about to be launched for the first time on our computer and it shows the status : "Status: Starting VirusScan". Now you need to wait a little.

 

 

Finally, a new window that says "Installation complete. We've finished installing your McAfee software.". Now you need to take a look on the right side of your taskbar and you should notice a small icon that will appear. It's an red "M" on a silver background. You need to double-click that icon to start McAfee.

 

 

Wait a couple of seconds and you should see for the first time the antivirus interface. After the interface will load you will be able to customize this interface. In this article we are going to perform the most important steps. We are going to update this antivirus and we will show how to perform a scan of your computer. Also, as you can see in the following picture the antivirus says that is a problem with my computer and on the right side it identifies the issue: "Microsoft automatic updates are disabled." Since I chosed to turn off automatic updates for this Windows XP I will choose to ignore this message.

 

 

Let's start to perform the first action. I will start to update this antivirus to ensure that it is up-to-date. To do this look on the left side of the antivirus interface and click on the first blue button called "Update". The antivirus will start to update his databases and it shows you that an animated icon will appear in your Windows notification area, at the far right of the taskbar. When the update is finished, this icon will automatically disappear.

 

 

You will be notified by a small window that will appear on the right side of your taskbar that "Your programs are up to date." To close this window click on "OK" button.

 

If the update was completed I suppose that you want to scan your computer. To perform this action, go back to the program interface and click on the second, blue button called "Scan". Inside that window, new features will appear that will ask you how do you want to scan your PC. For example you can perform a "Quick Scan", a "Full Scan" and "Let Me Choose". All you have to do is to click on the "Start" button and the scan will start except the latest button called "Let Me Choose" that will allow you to select the areas from your computer that you want to scan.

 

 

Finally, this is the latest window, if you want to switch to "Advanced Menu" you can do this by accessing the button located on the left side of the antivirus interface ( look down ) called "Advanced Menu". If you will click on that button you will notice that the antivirus interface will change his menu. From here you have access to more features that allows you to customize them. To return back to the classic menu ( the basic menu ) you will need to use a button located in the same location that is being called "Basic Menu" and the program will change his interface.

 

 

That's it, I hope that you've learned how to install McAfee Antivirus known as McAfee VirusScan. I tried to cover all windows even if some of them were probably not so important but I think that it is really important for beginners to understand the entire installation. I must say that I disagree with some steps. For example I hate the part were you need to register for this antivirus in order to install the trial version. I guess that they could create an integrated window that could make the installation process more easy and intuitive. However, this is not the purpose of this article, to show the bad and the good parts of this antivirus. There was only one purpose and that was to show you how to perform a basic installation on a PC running Windows XP, Vista or 7 and I really hope it will be useful.