When Avast 4.5 scan is finished, I get a screen that list files unable to can and says “Archive is password protected.” I don’t have a password or have protected it that I know of. What does this mean? I’m afraid there could be infections in these files since they are not scanned.

A lot of programs create password protected files (like Spybot Search & Destroy, for example), in order to protect some of their own files.

Give an example of some of the paths to the folder that is password protected.

As has been said there are many legitimate reasons for this.

Thanks for the responses. An example some of the files: C:\documents and setting\all users\application

with various ending such as: sbrecovery.ini and administrator @advertising.

I do have SpyBot and Ad Aware on my computer

I think the full path name would be …ApplicationData[i]Spybot…[/i]

Spybot backs up any entries it deletes in zip files there in case you find out you shouldn’t have deleted them. It zips them with a password so that other scanners like AdAware etc don’t constantly spot them and register that you still have these spy/malwares on your system. Avast (and any other scanners) can’t access these files because of the password.

The administrator@advertising entry, for example, was probably a tracking cookie that you told Spybot to delete at some time. If it wasn’t zipped and locked with a password then every time you scanned with spybot or adaware… they’d detect it all over again.

There’s no need to fear any infection from these - they’re locked away quite safely.

The sbrecovery.ini looks like the S&B recovery to roll back deletions you make and should be protected. You can however, clear out the Recovery items after a period to ensure they don’t need to be recovered.

This looks suspicious to me ‘administrator @advertising’ unless you know what it is about.

Beautiful!!!

I thank everyone for their help.