So, you want to show one of your kids or co-workers how your anti-virus software works. You don’t need a live virus to trigger a virus alert. Instead, download a copy of the official antivirus test file from the European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR). This is a simple text file consisting of a unique string of 68 ASCII characters that you can embed in a file to trigger a reaction from their programs. Note: This is a completely harmless file. The text string doesn’t do anything, and you would never type it by accident, I guarantee!
I won’t post the string here (to avoid setting off warning bells in virus scanners that are set with a hair trigger). But you can find details for creating this file on the EICAR page, along with links to download four different versions of the file. Be sure to download the Zip version of the file to demonstrate what happens when a virus is embedded in a compressed file.
It’s a great educational tool
Ed Bott 
Norton Antivirus 2005 did not detect it until after I downloaded it, then right clicked and did a Scan of it.
Norton (IIRC) is not configured to scan text files in real time. I’d be concerned if you downloaded the .com or .exe version and it wasn’t detected.
Oh ok, I tried the .com one and it detected it before downloading.
Panda Antivirus caught the zip file before it even completed 30 percent