Solved

How do I scan an entire network drive?

  • 8 February 2022
  • 6 replies
  • 490 views

I have a small NAS attached to my network. I have it mapped as the Z: drive on the computers on the network. I want to periodically scan the drive with Webroot from one of those computers (I don’t care which one, as long as I can get it to work). That does not seem to be possible right now.

When I right-click on the Z: drive in File Explorer and select Scan with Webroot, it only scans the root directory and quits. If I select a folder below the root, it scans that folder but none of its sub-folders.

So, it appears that on a mapped network drive Webroot is unable to scan anything more than a single directory at a time. This is a problem/defect that appears to go back at least 8 years. The only other reference I could find on here was a topic that was created 8 years ago describing the same problem. The most recent post in that topic was 6 years ago and the problem still existed then.

Has the defect been corrected since then? If so, what do I need to do to persuade Webroot to scan more than a single folder at a time on a mapped network drive?

icon

Best answer by Canuck-Ken 14 February 2022, 00:57

View original

6 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Hey there @Canuck-Ken ,

This is a great set of questions! I just reached out to our support team to inquire the best way to go about this and it will require either a set of custom scan options or using the command prompt to do it properly. They said that if you reach out to them via phone or ticket, they can answer any questions you have regarding scanning your network drive.

They can be reached here: http://webroot.com/us/en/support/home-contact

I’ve entered a ticket. I’ll update this thread when I hear something.

...ken...

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@Canuck-Ken ,

 

Just found an article that should help you set up a custom scan that would make it easier to scan your NAS drive: https://docs.webroot.com/us/en/home/wsa_pc_userguide/wsa_pc_userguide.htm#ScanningForMalware/CreatingCustomScans.htm

Thanks @khumphrey . I had already tried the custom scan before posting my question. That’s not a solution.

In the custom scan you still have the problem that when you try to scan a mapped network drive, Webroot only scans a single directory at a time and ignores all the sub-directories.

In order to use the custom scan feature on a mapped network drive to scan the entire drive, I would have to select every single directory/sub-directory on the drive and add them all, individually, to the list of directories to be scanned in the custom scan.

It’s honestly no easier than just right-clicking on the individual directories/sub-directories in the mapped drive and scanning them one at a time from File Explorer.

My NAS is not huge but it has enough directories/sub-directories that using that approach is out of the question.

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@Canuck-Ken ,

Then support may have a command line solution available or some other method of getting this done easier - I’m sure a ticket with them will get it working how you want!

@khumphrey  and anyone else looking for a solution to this problem, the answer is that there is not one with Webroot at this time.

I got an excellent answer from Webroot tech support today with a detailed explanation. In simple terms, the way you get low level access to a locally connected hard drive is significantly different than for a network share. Walking a directory tree on a locally connected drive is pretty straightforward. That is not the case for a network share.

While there may be a good solution in future, tech support says that the best current solution, if the custom scan feature of Webroot isn’t a reasonable one, is to find “a 'scan on demand' product that is able to perform database scans against a locally stored definition set”.

Now we know.

Reply