I
Ian
I have been using Panda platinum 7 antivirus that seems to be an addin
application for Email. It was working fine until I upgraded from
Outlook XP to Outlook 2003.
I found that downloading email was very slow and the screen would
flash and control of the mouse and keyboard would become unresponsive.
As Outlook is my number 2 application in usage this was a problem.
I did a complete new clean partition with Windows XP with all updates,
Outlook 2003 and Panda Antivirus but the problem still existed.
Contacting www.pandasoftware.com via their website and by email failed
to get any help.
Next I purchased the Panda internet security which was just released
and as it was a later version I assumed it would be compatible with
outlook 2003. I now no longer had slow downloads or the computer
windows flashing and performance problems. I started getting
Application Hang on Outlook 2003 many times a day. I used scanpst and
it made no difference. I went back to my older Panda Platinum
antivirus and Outlook did not hang but had severe impact on outlook
performance. This is not the only application that Outlook 2003 seems
to have broken. I found www.enfish.com indexing software also has
issues with Outlook 2003 and it seems to be some change with MAPI.
Anyway I installed, uninstalled and several times to convince myself
the problem was with Panda Antivirus. After about 6 weeks or inaction
from Panda who seem to have a response time of 1 week and who seem to
ignore all my testing and questions just reply with basic tests that I
have already done and explained.
Getting very tired of this I did some research. Somewhere I read but
can not find anymore that antivirus addins are not recommended by
Microsoft but I can not find the reference again.
I did a good look around and found eTrust EZ Antivirus
http://www.my-etrust.com/ which seemed to rate well.
I uninstalled Panda Antivirus for about the 10th time and installed
the eTrust software and my email downloaded about 3 times as fast even
while using Outlook 2003 for other things at the time. I am on a lot
of mailing lists so have a lot of email each day.
All is looking good. Now only one thing. I now find that EZ Antivirus
does not scan PST files. As I have a few and look after other peoples
email scanning PST files was one of the features I used a lot. I am
not an expert but my summary is it looks like the issue is Panda
Antivirus hooks into Outlook as an Addin. It also seems that this
process is not recommended by Microsoft for whatever reason. I would
like to find a PST antivirus solution to clean up peoples pst files as
a part of disinfecting virus ridden computers. The way it seems to
work is Outlook has to be running in some way and ties in with MAPI to
do a PST scan.
Is there such a thing as a fast reliable Antivirus product that allows
PST scanning and has real support? I think you need 24 hour turn
around on support issues with antivirus not weeks. It seems crazy it
takes so much effort to diagnose and submit detailed reports to an
antivirus vendor and they just ignore the issue. It is not like
Outlook 2003 is a rare item or it just came out last month. Is there
anyway to scan a PST file without an addin to Outlook? Is the post I
read but can not now find accurate about antivirus addins being a
risky thing?
As far as I can tell the event log is not a lot of use but I will copy
it here.
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 16/04/2004
Time: 11:26:23 AM
User: N/A
Computer: MAX
Description:
Hanging application OUTLOOK.EXE, version 11.0.5510.0, hang module
hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 4f 55 54 4c 4f 4f OUTLOO
0018: 4b 2e 45 58 45 20 31 31 K.EXE 11
0020: 2e 30 2e 35 35 31 30 2e .0.5510.
0028: 30 20 69 6e 20 68 75 6e 0 in hun
0030: 67 61 70 70 20 30 2e 30 gapp 0.0
0038: 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 74 20 .0.0 at
0040: 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20 30 offset 0
0048: 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 0000000
application for Email. It was working fine until I upgraded from
Outlook XP to Outlook 2003.
I found that downloading email was very slow and the screen would
flash and control of the mouse and keyboard would become unresponsive.
As Outlook is my number 2 application in usage this was a problem.
I did a complete new clean partition with Windows XP with all updates,
Outlook 2003 and Panda Antivirus but the problem still existed.
Contacting www.pandasoftware.com via their website and by email failed
to get any help.
Next I purchased the Panda internet security which was just released
and as it was a later version I assumed it would be compatible with
outlook 2003. I now no longer had slow downloads or the computer
windows flashing and performance problems. I started getting
Application Hang on Outlook 2003 many times a day. I used scanpst and
it made no difference. I went back to my older Panda Platinum
antivirus and Outlook did not hang but had severe impact on outlook
performance. This is not the only application that Outlook 2003 seems
to have broken. I found www.enfish.com indexing software also has
issues with Outlook 2003 and it seems to be some change with MAPI.
Anyway I installed, uninstalled and several times to convince myself
the problem was with Panda Antivirus. After about 6 weeks or inaction
from Panda who seem to have a response time of 1 week and who seem to
ignore all my testing and questions just reply with basic tests that I
have already done and explained.
Getting very tired of this I did some research. Somewhere I read but
can not find anymore that antivirus addins are not recommended by
Microsoft but I can not find the reference again.
I did a good look around and found eTrust EZ Antivirus
http://www.my-etrust.com/ which seemed to rate well.
I uninstalled Panda Antivirus for about the 10th time and installed
the eTrust software and my email downloaded about 3 times as fast even
while using Outlook 2003 for other things at the time. I am on a lot
of mailing lists so have a lot of email each day.
All is looking good. Now only one thing. I now find that EZ Antivirus
does not scan PST files. As I have a few and look after other peoples
email scanning PST files was one of the features I used a lot. I am
not an expert but my summary is it looks like the issue is Panda
Antivirus hooks into Outlook as an Addin. It also seems that this
process is not recommended by Microsoft for whatever reason. I would
like to find a PST antivirus solution to clean up peoples pst files as
a part of disinfecting virus ridden computers. The way it seems to
work is Outlook has to be running in some way and ties in with MAPI to
do a PST scan.
Is there such a thing as a fast reliable Antivirus product that allows
PST scanning and has real support? I think you need 24 hour turn
around on support issues with antivirus not weeks. It seems crazy it
takes so much effort to diagnose and submit detailed reports to an
antivirus vendor and they just ignore the issue. It is not like
Outlook 2003 is a rare item or it just came out last month. Is there
anyway to scan a PST file without an addin to Outlook? Is the post I
read but can not now find accurate about antivirus addins being a
risky thing?
As far as I can tell the event log is not a lot of use but I will copy
it here.
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 16/04/2004
Time: 11:26:23 AM
User: N/A
Computer: MAX
Description:
Hanging application OUTLOOK.EXE, version 11.0.5510.0, hang module
hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 4f 55 54 4c 4f 4f OUTLOO
0018: 4b 2e 45 58 45 20 31 31 K.EXE 11
0020: 2e 30 2e 35 35 31 30 2e .0.5510.
0028: 30 20 69 6e 20 68 75 6e 0 in hun
0030: 67 61 70 70 20 30 2e 30 gapp 0.0
0038: 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 74 20 .0.0 at
0040: 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20 30 offset 0
0048: 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 0000000