In the past years, antivirus installation has become a piece of cake. You do not need to wait for hours to get the program installed or make it running. Obviously, we should thank the powerful algorithms and the better compression/decompression techniques. Even so, there exists an issue that most people hate: most antivirus programs want you to restart your computer after installing the program. Some of you might be wondering how it’s so. It’s a kind of compulsion without having much explanation, right? And, that’s why we really need to talk about how antivirus installation work and why a restart is highly recommended.
Through this article, we can have an open discussion over this topic. We will find out whether it’s necessary to restart computers and why – or why not – you should do so. We will start with an introduction to how antivirus programs work once they are installed in a PC or Mac.
The Thing about Antivirus Installation
Antivirus software are quite different from normal software, in many aspects. By the term software, we are focusing on the utility ones, such as Photoshop, Chrome, Firefox, etc. The traditional software are meant to work on top of your OS, within the created framework so that the action is carried out properly. On the other hand, antivirus software are supposed to provide you system-wide protection and associated options. Take an example, for instance, that of real-time protection. In this case, some serious changes should be made to the system level. It basically depends on the type of antivirus you’re trying to install, but some things are lot more common.
Cut the story short, keep in mind that antivirus installation process requires more resources and they make a bunch of changes in system-level as well. We can continue the discussion from this point.
Is a System Restart Necessary?
We have a short answer and a long answer to start with.
- Short Answer
Yes, it’s highly recommended that you should restart the computer after installing antivirus program. As per what the developers say, it will enable all the features and system-wide protection. This works for almost all the antivirus programs out there in the market.
- Long Answer
We already talked about what happens when you install an antivirus program in a computer, be it a Mac or Windows PC. In comparison, however, Windows PC allows an extensive level of system changes that can be used for having better control over the device. Put that technicality apart, some dedicated reasons are there why antivirus program require/recommend a system restart after installation.
As you know, antivirus suites, nowadays, are shipped with a wide variety of features. There are features that even give you boot-level protection. That is, if there are some threats that affect your system booting process entirely, the antivirus program will remove the threat. Similarly, there are startup action managers and built-in immunizer utilities. All these features require extensive system access for functioning.
For instance, if the boot-level protection needs to be enabled, there would be enough system changes. You can also spot some registry-level changes for extensive coverage of features. Most of these changes would be made during the installation, but some of them require complete system administrative power. So, a full system restart will give the antivirus all these permissions.
We hope you understand the real value of system restarts now. While the ultimate choice is yours, a bunch of technical reasons are why such a restart is recommended. It’s basically for the extensive benefit of your system and protection, you know.
What Happens When You Ignore System Restarts?
You might also have this doubt regarding the installation part, right? There is nothing much dangerous that would happen if you ignore the many system restart requests you receive. However, there may be problems at the end of the day.
The biggest problem is that not all of your antivirus protection features won’t work. This is something not-so-good for your system, due to many reasons. As you know, Ransomware — one of the major nightmares of those who are security-conscious — have some methods of boot-level attacks. So, a proper layer of booting-level safety and real-time protection is required here.
If you don’t restart the computer after installation, there will be a mess-up in enabling and executing proper functioning of these features. Obviously, if you purchased one of the best antivirus that offers 360-degree digital protection, this is a waste of money. You won’t be able to use the programs even after installing the antivirus.
So, the sooner you restart, the better!
Wrapping Up
Considering all the above-mentioned points, it makes enough sense to restart your computer after installing an antivirus program. Not only does it unleash all the offered features, but it also gets rid of possible system-level errors you might come across otherwise. By the way, which was the last antivirus program that you did install?
