Whenever I upgraded Avast! Home to 4.8 (and uninstalled and reinstalled just to make sure by Avast! support) it skips over the “System Volume Information” whenever I scan the system. I always do a thorough scan with archived files checked. I also notice that it skips from 29% to 57% whenever it goes from Documents and Settings to Program Files and goes from 79% to 100% whenever it finishes scanning.
However if I do a boot scan it works perfectly fine and scans all files with the percentage going up steadily.
Well the system volume information folder can be absolutely huge unless you restrict its size in the system restore. I have seen it balloon to over 1.5GB. The progress isn’t a precision tool and I think it updates after folders, so that may account for the jump.
There is nothing in the program to make it skip the system volume information folder/s unless you specifically exclude it from scans, unwise.
Right click on the folder and see how big it is ?
The boot-time scan I don’t think scans all files. I don’t see this huge jumps on my system, for one I don’t do a thorough scan with archives, life it too short.
Archive (zip, rar, etc.) files are by their nature are inert, you need to extract the files and then you have to run them to be a threat. Long before that happens avast’s Standard Shield should have scanned them and before an executable is run that is scanned. Thorough is also by its design very thorough and perhaps a little overkill for routine use, were a Standard scan without archives should be adequate.
I have only ever done a through scan with archives once shortly after installation just to ensure a clean start state, but with XP for example avast will do a boot-time scan after installation if you select it, this I believe will be quicker and reasonably effective. Like everything in life things are a compromise.
Are you saying the previous version (4.7) of avast! scanned this folder even from Windows for you, but now (4.8) it doesn’t - or you don’t know if anything has changed?
Are you logged on as an administrator, or as an ordinary user?
I would suggest you recover some of this disk space, and reduce the size. You may also consider setting a new clean restore point and clearing the old restore points, obviously when you are happy that things are right with your current setup.
David makes a good suggestion. I just lowered the amount I allowed for “Sys Restore” on my XP box to about 2% from 12%. It freed up over 2 Gig of HDD space. The default was 12% or about 28 Gig on my 250 Gig HDD. WAY TOO much stuff was being saved. It’s suggested that it be set for around 1 gig – but not less than 500 meg. Here’s a good link if interested:
Adjust the Disk Space Used (or data store) by System Restore. By default System Restore will use 12% disk space for most size drives. With new larger drives the data store can get quite large, which has been know to cause problems in System Restore. Setting the data store to just under 1GB should be adequate. Note: Reducing the data store size will purge the oldest restore points on a FIFO (first in first out) bases and leave as many recent restore points as the new size will allow. Restore points over 90 days are purged automatically by default.
I’m the only user on the machine in question, but other multi-user machines I am set as administrator. Yes, Avast! 4.7 scanned the folder, but 4.8 will not (only under boot time scan it will).
Good point, which I can easily do on my computer, but family machines I opt to leave all points in because, from time to time, they bring me the machine with problems a few weeks later than I would like. My workstation only is equipped with a 30GB drive (which is not upgradeable above 40GB under normal specifications) which shouldn’t be much of a problem when it comes to large sizes. On external drives I disable it in its entirety because it is quite useless when some points are system specific.
I went ahead and tried it on a few other computers and it has the same symptoms.
Try the following, please:
Download File Monitor, run it and set a filter (Ctrl+L) to ashquick (those asterisks included)
Then, rightclick the “System Volume Information” folder in a file manager and choose “Scan” (alternatively, you may use ashQuick.exe from avast! installation folder: ashQuick.exe “c:\System Volume Information” ).
What does File Monitor show afterwards?
As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with my ThinkPad.
Assuming that Avast! scans in alphabetical order, it has skipped “System Volume Information” on two other machines. The HP which I mentioned and a Toshiba Satellite running Vista SP1.
All three systems are laptops, but I don’t think Avast! distinguishes between desktops and laptops.
Note: The Vista machine blocks access to the folder when I try to scan it manually.
Every weekly scan (I use ashquick.exe) has terminated for a couple of years now (through all versions of avast) with:
N:\System Volume Information
I followed the request from igor (but I already keep the very useful Filemon on my system) and it clearly shows that the folder is scanned. It is not clear to me why you appear reluctant to comply with the request.
I just conducted an ashSimpl.ex scan of the same disk. Filemon shows very clearly that ashSimpl.exe scanned the System Volume Information.
I ask again … is there a reason you are failing to use a tool that will show if your concern is well founded?
By the way a Quick Scan is part of either ashSimple.exe or ashSimp2.exe the process ashquick.exe is, in fact a thorough scan with archive scanning by default.
It is a Microsoft/System Internals product provided for the very function of reporting file system accesses.
It does not require an install it is just a program you download and run.
If you cannot believe the advice of igor (a prominent member of the avast team contributing to this forum) then I have to wonder why you feel able to trust the avast product on your system.
I never said I didn’t believe the advice of Igor, it is just that whenever I undervolt my CPU, I know it literally doubles the scanning time when the System Volume Information is scanned. Plus I do not think a 1600MHz Low Voltage M (600MHz at minimal power respectively) combined with a 4200RPM Hitachi can scan 2.1GBs of files in 0.0 seconds.
In other words, I find it pointless to run a tool whenever I look on my screen at the obvious. It is occuring on all machines that I have run it on so far. 4.8 is new, and probably has a few changes (for example the “Would you like to set up a boot time scan” does not appear whenever I installed Avast! on a brand new Vista SP1 machine).
It seems you wish to confuse multiple issues to avoid the central issue of this thread.
You, almost certainly, do not know how the internals of avast work yet you installed it on your system apparently unconcerned by that fact.
A member of the team had provided you with a way of confirming your concern and you decide to ignore that advice. I have to assume that you do not wish to see the evidence it might provide.
I regret to conclude that further discussion with you will be of no value to you and a waste of my effort.