How to test your anti-virus

We all will have an anti-virus or two installed in our system for sure. Once I want to test the anti-virus I have installed. I cant risk my system by directly installing an anti-virus. Then i came across this method of creating a fake virus. The procedure to test the anti-virus is as follows:

• Open notepad.
• Copy the below code in the file.

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

• Then save it with the name fakevirus.exe
  
  If this file got deleted immediately that means your antivirus is working and updated. Try it.