Unprotected Computers

Written By Cindy Johnson (Super Administrator)

Updated at June 15th, 2021

VIPRE automatically detects online computers that are reachable from the machine on which it is installed. These computers are listed under the Unprotected Computers tab of the selected security policy. From this tab, you are able to deploy agents on single or multiple computers, as well as assign policies to the new agent(s).

Unprotected Computers Tab

The Unprotected Computers tab is suitable for deploying agents in all environments. VIPRE automatically scans your network for unprotected computers through Active Directory and NetBIOS once an hour, and agents that are unresponsive for three days are automatically removed from the list.


The Unprotected Computers tab may be hidden on individual Windows policies, or Windows policies group, if:

  • Endpoint discovery is disabled in the site settings
  • VSS has not already discovered unprotected machines on the network.

If VSS discovers an unprotected machine, after which the admin turns off endpoint discovery, the Unprotected Computers tab is still shown.

On individual Hyper-V policies and on the Hyper-V policies group, the Unprotected Computers tab is always shown, regardless of if the endpoint discovery option is enabled or not.


The admin can click on the “Search” button in the lower right corner of the Unprotected Computers tab to force VSS to search the network for new, unprotected machines. This search function honors the Unprotected Computer Discovery settings in site properties.

Regardless of whether the “Enable endpoint discovery” checkbox is checked, VSS searches for new computers on the selected domains in the tree list. If no domains are checked, VSS does not search when the search button is clicked, regardless of whether the “Enable endpoint discovery” checkbox is checked.

Newly discovered machines have a status of “Need Credentials”. If the credentials work, the status changes to “Install Now.”

Group Computer Information

The information in this tab can be grouped by any of the existing columns. Drag a column heading and drop it in the provided area above the headings row. You can add multiple column headings. Each heading that is added, becomes a sub-group of the preceding heading.

Agents Right-Click Menu

To interact with agents from the Unprotected Computers tab:

  1. Select one or more agents. Use Ctrl or Shift for multiple selections.
  2. Right-click one of the selected agents and select any of the following options:
  • Refresh: select to refresh the data on the screen.
  • Print\Email\Export: select to print, email, or export the entire contents of the grid. Once selected, a preview pane displays how the grid will be printed. From the preview pane, you can modify the background (including the color or watermark), change the print settings, export the grid as a PDF document, and send it via email in any of several formats, including PDF, MHT, RTF, Excel, CSV, TXT, or an image file. You can select the columns that will display and in what order before printing, emailing, or exporting.
  • Install Agent(s)...: starts downloading the micro installer on the target computer and attempts to install the agent.
  • Edit Note: click to display a text box to enter a note for the selected agent. You can only enter a note for one agent at a time.
  • Re-scan the selected computer(s): refreshes the information displayed under the Status column of each unprotected computer. In some cases, computers that go offline remain available under the Unprotected Computers tab. Use this option to updates computer statuses and display the most recent information.
  • Ping Computer: select to send an ICMP ping to a computer. This enables you to determine if the target computer is online and responsive.
  • Restart the selected computer(s): restarts the selected computer(s).
  • Hide the selected computer(s): hides the computer(s) until you choose to show them. To show them, select View hidden computer(s) on the top-right of the Unprotected Computers page, then select the computer(s) to 'unhide'.
  • Remove the selected computer(s): removes the computer(s) if they are no longer on the network. If they become active again, they will be rediscovered during the next endpoint discovery.