topic Re: McAfee full scan in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 10:44:10 GMT

Hello,

I decided it was time to run a McAfee full scan yesterday. This began at about 11am and other than this scan the laptop was idle. I checked again at 4:30 pm and only 60% of the scan was complete (110,000 files approx.) I checked again at 10:15pm now at 81%, at this point I decided to pause the scan and shut the laptop down. I have run full scans before on this laptop that have taken a while but nothing like this. Have any other plusnet users had similar issues or does anyone have any suggestions to what the problem may be?

Many thanks

Re: McAfee full scan

shutter — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 13:38:47 GMT

Have you got CCleaner installed? if not... install it,

click on the wheel/cog (Options) and then choose "settings" ... on that page... Secure Deletion... choose "Secure file deletion) . and in the selection box... choose Advanced Overwrite ( 3 passes )

and then run it... ( It may take a long long long time on the first run )..

This should clear out a load of old useless files and stuff before you do your "McAfee" scan.

You could also do a "Registry Cleaner"... if you have been installing and uninstalling programs since your last McAfee scan...

after you haved done the "initial clean up"... your McAfee scan would probably take less time, as it has less files to scan... !

Re: McAfee full scan

rongtw — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 13:41:08 GMT

Hi , yes it does seam a long time but there again it is McAffee

Problem is there are a not a lot here that use it because its POOOOOP and you would be better uninstall it and use something else , plenty of free ones about or just like me use windows built in Defender , with help from Malwarebytes Free

Re: McAfee full scan

Alex — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 13:50:29 GMT

Yes there are people who don't get on with McAffee on these forums, and use something else and will suggest alternatives. There was another recent thread discussing a similar issue.

Could be an update to the software which has screwed it up, or you could have something running in the background slowing it down. I would try and run it again with as little as possibile in the background to see if it any faster. If you're brave enough I would go to task manager and shut applications down manually.

I've not used it in years so I don't know what it is like now.

Re: McAfee full scan

Baldrick1 — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:13:01 GMT

This will probably be caused by having a load of junk for McAfee (yuck!) to trawl through. As @shutter advises, Ccleaner is good (make sure you have the latest version, there was a problem with it a bit back). I have also used WinOptimiser in the past (use it for the free trial period then delete it). Malwarebytes will identify a load of PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programmes) and give you the option to get rid of them. Another big load of code will arise if Windows has updated in the last month. The old version will have saved in the directory Windows.old for a month To remove it see https://www.howtogeek.com/223821/what-is-the-windows.old-folder-and-how-do-you-delete-it/.

The trick is to get rid of the junk, and if you want the very best performance, defragment the hard drive (assuming it's not a SSD), before running a virus scan.

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:21:33 GMT

Hi Shutter,

Thanks for the reply. I've been using C Cleaner for a while but not with the settings you suggest. I'll change the settings and see what happens, the only draw back is that I cannot alter the files that have been deleted with stock settings.

Many thanks

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:31:03 GMT

Hi rongtw,

Thanks for the reply. I have decided to try a few suggestions first, see what happens and then decide. All I can say is that so far McAfee seems to have worked OK for me, however you never know how good or bad software is until you have a problem

Many thanks

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:38:55 GMT

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the reply. As far as I know there was nothing else running, I did open the task manager to see what was going on but it confirmed that nearly all of the resources were being used by the anti virus software. I have decide to try a few suggestions and see what happens next.

Many thanks

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 16:08:22 GMT

Hi Baldrick 1,

Seems like a cunning plan. I've had a look at your suggestion about the windows old folder and it looks like previous incarnation windows has already gone. I'll have a look at the other things you suggested, there has to be a reason for it.

Many thanks

PS. Thanks for the link

Re: McAfee full scan

Baldrick1 — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 16:09:41 GMT

wrote:

.... This began at about 11am and other than this scan the laptop was idle. I checked again at 4:30 pm and only 60% of the scan was complete (110,000 files approx.) I checked again at 10:15pm now at 81%,

Just for a comparison I have just run a full scan using Kaspersky (is that howls of derision from the reds under my bed brigade that I can hear?). It took 22 minutes to get through 598,000 files. OK I have an SSD system disc plus a HDD for data but even so...

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 16:21:28 GMT

Hello again Baldrick 1,

Thanks for the update, the speed of Kaspersky is impressive. Another thing to consider!

Again Many thanks

Re: McAfee full scan

Baldrick1 — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 16:38:43 GMT

you could try the free one month trial and see how it goes.

Re: McAfee full scan

7up — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:11:04 GMT

Download Avast, it's free, decent, detects stuff (unlike AVG) and doesn't cause any hassle.

McAfee is the worst AV I've ever used.

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 10:24:43 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for the heads-up.

Cheers Rocko

Re: McAfee full scan

billnotben — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 10:43:19 GMT

My brother had a very similar problem on his pc. Full virus scan with nod would take so long that he would end up turning it off.

I can't remember the exact details but I believe it was down to a windows log file. Windows had got upset over some very minor thing and kept making a log file about it. Of course the log file was tiny but there was tens of thousands of them. The problem it was logging wasn't very important so I set up CC to empty that directory when used. I think I eventually turned off that log recording.

The big give away to where the problem was, on nod anyway, was watching the checkers progress in the nod window. It would zip through most of the windows partition and then slow to a crawl in the offending directory.

Re: McAfee full scan

Rocko — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 11:08:03 GMT

Hi billnotben,

Next time I run a scan I'll see if it scan rate changes at a particular point and also check out Windows error reporting log files.

Many thanks