I knew I should have added - no more questions until after the test! LOL!!
Nothing is guaranteed 100% safe, not even Norton, but you are not at any more risk than anyone else who does not spend all day worrying about and running manual updates, scans, etc constantly! If things go too long without updating your should be warned by Norton.
FWIW, Norton says that if you can not receive LiveUpdates (basically the same as Autoupdate not working) because the server can not be contacted, to wait 24 hours to se if things change. That would be at least 24 hours without an update and Norton suggests that - so going 4 hours or so as you will be doing with the test, is no big deal!