I’m using a fully updated Avast Home edition on my XP, SP 2 system. When I do a scan, Avast seems to get stuck in a loop about 60,000 files into the scan. As it scans the System Volume information, it seems to scan the same files over and over again as I watch. It recently counted over 125,000 files as scanned and I know I don’t have that much on my system.
My question is what to do about it?? Should I uninstall and then re-install Avast? How would that effect the license key for the existing installation. If I can’t solve this rather simply, I will uninstall Avast and choose a different AV program.
Are you sure you don’t have that many files there? The System Volume Information folder is the storage for the “System Restore” feature (of Windows) - it can contain many past snapshots of your system. The filenames are very similar so it may seem that avast! is scanning the same file over and over, but my guess is that you really have to many files there - and if you wait long enough (how long did you wait?), they will be finished with.
You may also want to lower the reserved disk space for System Restore in system configuration… which should reduce the usage.
(1) I’m not familiar with the “Repair” function. Does it exist in the “Home” (free) version? If so, where do I locate it?
(2) I’m using past experience as am indicator in this matter. I’ve used Avast for about 13 months and during that time I have always had my System Restore disc usage set to 3%, down from its default of 12%. I have also uninstalled a second browser’s software from the system recently which reduced my HD usage from 15 Gb to 6 Gb. The problem had arisen just before this uninstallation was done.
Actually, the previous versions of avast! (i.e. the ones before the latest update) probably didn’t scan the System Volume Information folder at all (speaking of the on-demand scanner like Simple User Interface - not about resident protection or boot-time scanner). So, this might be the reason of the increased scan time.
If you wish not to scan the System Volume Information again, you can put the corresponding mask into the list of avast! exclusions.
Using the “Settings” feature, I browsed to my C:\ drive and put a tick beside “System Information”. The following scan went of without a hitch. I noted that none of the “Restore” files were scanned nor were a number of .bmp files. Now I will remove the tick and do another scan to see if, in fact, I simply have been impatient with the other configuration.
I am still quite curious about the previously-mentioned “Repair” feature as I had posted earlier. Do you have some information on this??
I am embarrassed to say that it appears that my “looping” was really a case of impatience on my part. I have concluded a “thorough” scan including “System Volume Information” and the scan did complete itself. Only 97 files were not scanned…the “Recovery” files and a collection of bitmaps. I am sorry that I appear an alarmist. I would, though, appreciate more information on the “Repair” function mentioned in earlier posts.
I won’t make this option permanent… it’s better and safe to scan this system folder…
Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove. Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair). You must be connected to the internet while repairing.
Hi :