Lower process priority of virus scan?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Ma
  • Start date Start date
F

Fred Ma

Hi,

I tend to work at all hours. Often, McAfee or Norton will scan
for hours as I'm working away. It slows everything down tremendously.
I haven't found a way to lower the priority of the scan process so that
it proceeds "opportunistically" (like unix's "nice" command). Is there
a way to do this? I'm using Windows 2000 Pro.

Thanks.

Fred

If the solution exists, it might be a AV software thing or a general
windows thing. Hence, I've posted to posted to alt.com.vius,
alto.com.anti-virus, microsoft.public.win2000.security, and
microsoft.public.win2000.general. I will include responses in my
response to avoid fragmenting the thread.
 
These scans do not run for itself - you have sheduled them or this was their
default sheduling - change it!

I personally use symantec antivirus - There is an option when you make a
scan that you can set process priority, most probbaly there is such one in
others too.

You can try from task manager to find whish one is the process of the
antivirus and right click - set priority to "Bellow Normal"

So explore options that you have within these antivirus products.

Bojidar Alexandrov
 
Andy said:
Schedule your scan.
Click to expand...
Press ctrl + shift + escape to get the windows task manager with processes
tab up. Find the process name, right click on it and you can set the
priority!
Click to expand...
These scans do not run for itself - you have sheduled them or this was their
default sheduling - change it!

I personally use symantec antivirus - There is an option when you make a
scan that you can set process priority, most probbaly there is such one in
others too.

You can try from task manager to find whish one is the process of the
antivirus and right click - set priority to "Bellow Normal"
Click to expand...


The reason why the scheduling isn't working is because I'm
pulling multi-day marathons at school (and at home). There
isn't a time that I'm likely to be not working away. Furthermore,
I try not to use the administrator account, so changing the
options when the scan does initiate is extremely inconvenient.

I like the idea of controlling the priority from the task manager.
Thank you for pointing that out. Because the antivirus is not
the same from one computer to another, using this windows feature
is preferable to finding a setting within the antivirus program to
do the same. I will try that when the AV program next launches, to
see if nonadministrators can change priorities.

Thanks.

Fred

P.S. Sent to:
microsoft.public.win2000.security,
microsoft.public.win2000.general,
alt.comp.virus, and alt.comp.anti-virus.
 
The reason why the scheduling isn't working is because I'm
pulling multi-day marathons at school (and at home). There
isn't a time that I'm likely to be not working away. Furthermore,
I try not to use the administrator account, so changing the
options when the scan does initiate is extremely inconvenient.
Click to expand...

Then just disable sheduling and when you are in proper mood run the scan
manually ;-)

I like the idea of controlling the priority from the task manager.
Thank you for pointing that out. Because the antivirus is not
the same from one computer to another, using this windows feature
is preferable to finding a setting within the antivirus program to
do the same. I will try that when the AV program next launches, to
see if nonadministrators can change priorities.
Click to expand...

Most probably it will not work with non-admin user.

Generally they run like services and non-admin will not have the right to do
so.
In my antivirus (symantec) there is option if I allow user to stop/pause the
scan (and also to automatically resume after specified time) We use symantec
corporate edition hovewer but probbaly there are such options in personal
version too.

Bojidar Alexandrov
 
Bojidar said:
Then just disable sheduling and when you are in proper mood run the scan
manually ;-)
Click to expand...

And as long as all incoming files are scanned, there is really no
need to repeatedly scan the entire hard drive. Just set your
AV program to scan all files as they come in - whether over a
network or off of a CD, DVD, or floppy - and you should be more
than safe enough if you just manually scan the entire drive
every second or third blue moon.
 
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