User Guide

Understanding iDAT Technology
198 McAfee VirusScan Anti-Virus Software
dat-4056.zip
dat-4056.tar
DELTA.INI
README.TXT
Best practices
The following sections outline some suggestions for how to employ iDAT
downloads in your updating strategy.
Three-stage updating
If you need to roll out new virus definitions to multiple workstations on your
network, McAfee recommends a three-stage update strategy that will save
you external network bandwidth, minimize your security risks, and give you
more control over your internal updating strategy:
1. If the .DAT files installed on your network computers are very old, use a
web browser or FTP client software to download a full .DAT file update
or the SuperDAT utility to a central server on your network, then
configure the AutoUpdate copies on your network computers to
download and install the complete .DAT set and the current scan engine.
This brings your network to a workable baseline state. You can then
download and install iDAT files to keep current.
2. From the baseline state, use a web browser or FTP client software each
week to download new .UPD files directly from the McAfee FTP site to a
central server on your network.
If you start from the baseline state described in Step 1, you can simply
download the most recent .UPD file posted on the McAfee FTP site. If
you have not updated in a couple of weeks, open the DELTA.INI file
online, and look at the entries in the Multiple Patch and the Incremental
Resolver tables to see which .UPD files you must download to update the
.DAT files installed on your network, then download each of the files you
need, including the DELTA.INI file.
3. Install all of the .UPD files and the DELTA.INI file you downloaded to a
central server on your network, then configure the AutoUpdate copies
on your network computers to download and install the iDAT set. Do not
mark these files read-only, as this could cause the target computer to
report an error when it tries to delete old files later.