Scheduling Updates from Intelligent Update

My company uses Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition. Our client systems are set up to poll our antivirus server for new virus definitions every hour. Symantec typically releases new LiveUpdate virus-definition updates every Wednesday, or whenever a new major virus is discovered, but adds definitions of new but less prevalent viruses only to the Intelligent Updater, which Symantec updates almost daily but which must be downloaded manually. A few times in the past months, we've been hit with viruses that Symantec patched through the Intelligent Updater rather than through LiveUpdate. Is it possible to schedule Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition to download Intelligent Updater definitions?

Yes, you can schedule a process to update your Intelligent Updater definitions on a daily basis or according to whatever schedule you deem appropriate. (Symantec, in fact, recommends that companies that have many clients connected to the Internet rely primarily on the Intelligent Updater, as the Symantec Support Web site's When to use the Intelligent Updater instead of LiveUpdate page, at http://service1.symantec.com/support/sharedtech.nsf/docid/2002021908382713?opendocument&src=sec_web_nam, explains.) If you run Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition on machines that also run Symantec AntiVirus for Gateway Solution or Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange, you can also use the Intelligent Updater to update the definitions for these packages.

First, you must create a .bat file and a .txt file to schedule the process using the Windows Task Scheduler (or a third-party task scheduler). You can find a detailed description of this process at the Symantec Web site's How to automatically update Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 8.x definitions without using LiveUpdate page (http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/docid/2002091816510548?open&src=&docid=2002103012571948&nsf=ent-security.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=). Note, however, that Symantec doesn't provide technical support for scheduled updates of the Intelligent Updater.

Symantec provides two files to use as templates: one .bat file (cegetter.bat) and one .txt file (cescript.txt), both of which are necessary to schedule the updates. I didn't need to modify cescript.txt and needed to change very little to get the .bat file template to work in my environment; I simply needed to specify the location in which I wanted to place the Intelligent Updater definitions (which arrive as a .xbd file). To do so, I changed the line

move /y %systemdrive%*.xdb 

to

move %systemdrive%*.xdb "C:Program FilesNAV"

Place both files in your server's root directory. To test the .bat file, simply execute the script and see whether it successfully downloads the most recent .xbd file. (You can tell by looking in your local definitions directory and checking the date of the file.) Then, use Windows Task Scheduler to set the update process.