Whoa! Look at this from Symantec Technical Support in answer to a question asked by someone else on that NAV 2001 support board:

Certain types of files are included by default in the Norton AntiVirus exclusions list, and in fact the scanner will not work properly without them.

These files are excluded for safety reasons. They are mostly Microsoft application and data files which have been designed to integrate closely with your operating system. By design, they are resistant to modification, and serious corruption and data loss can result if NAV attempts to modify their contents.

Also, by Windows design, the contents of these files are inert until accessed by their parent applications. At this point they are written into temp files which are scanned, and you will be alerted to any malicious code present. You will then have an opportunity to act upon them.


For anyone with a burning desire to check that out in context, here is the source Symantec reply.

Guess it may not be such a good idea to eliminate those exclusions after all! Thanks for the reminder to check that board, Bucket.

BTW, Bucket, check your PM.