Hidden Cost of Viruses

Computer viruses can cost you time and money, that's obvious: if your computer gets infected by a nasty virus, it can take ages to clean it, sometimes even requiring you to completely re-install your operating system from scratch. But there are other hidden costs to viruses and they can even cost you when your computer doesn't get infected. I have been discovering one of those costs on my new contract. I got given a nice laptop running Windows XP Pro (Vista? Who said Vista?) complete with corporate security software. And that's where the problem is: the virus scanner is configured to do a full scan every time I switch on the computer. So the routine in the morning is simple: arrive in the office, plug in the laptop, switch it on and go get a coffee. Then wait some more until it's finished thrashing the hard disk. End result: 15 minutes every morning.