Ask Juan - Question and Answer
Download, Save, Virus Scan Your Files
Question:
How do I open a download-able file from a safe Christian site? I can download, and get it saved to my desktop (no clue about how to save to disk) but once on my desktop, how to scan for virus, or open it??? Any help would be appreciated. His in Love & Service, Laurie
Answer:
Downloading a file to your desktop is no different than saving it to your disk. The desktop happens to be just another folder in the hard drive. If you were successful in downloading a file to your desktop, then you are half way to understanding how it all works.
If you notice, when you are downloading an executable file from a link on the internet you get a warning by Internet Explorer. The popup window will have three buttons: run, save, and cancel. Clicking on RUN opens the file.
Clicking on SAVE will give you an option to put the file somewhere on your disk. By default the files get saved on your desktop, but you can change the location by selecting a different folder there.
If you are browsing with Firefox, you don’t get a choice to open your download. And by default all your downloads will end up on the desktop. You can change the default location where the files will save before you attempt to download. By clicking on “tools,” then “options,” then “downloads” you can pick an alternate location for your files.
The second step is to “scan” the file for viruses. This is a simple operation if you have a virus scanner installed. All you need to do is right-click on the file (or any file for that matter) and you will see a content sensitive menu.
Because you have right-clicked on a file, you will get options related to file handling. The one you want is “Scan with *scanner.” (Where *scanner is your virus scanner.) By the way, the most common downloadable files have an extension of exe or zip. Other popular download extensions are jpg, pdf, and mp3s. And you can open (or run) them by double clicking on the file.