Avast Pro 4.8 update causing network-file related problems

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have a client with 15 licenses of Avast Pro, all HP PCs running XP SP2, fully patched. All running against SBS2003 file server box to access (eg) Word documents.

Those machines (4 so far before I changed to manual update) that have updated to 4.8 are getting weird problems accessing files on the server - access is OK, but attempts to save documents after modification are getting Read-only indication, so they have to save with a different filename.
De-installed 4.8, reinstalled back to 4.7, and all back to normal.

The drive letters linked to the folders on the server from which these documents are being retrieved have all been mapped under Standard Sheild settings, customise, advanced to be excluded from being examined (as the SBS box is also running Avast, there is no real need to double-check).

Also noted from 1 machine that Word is leaving a lot of temp files in the folders of documents being edited, and I cannot remove them without reboot of the server (1 folder has over 100 of these files, which confuses users who open from Word with ‘all files’ checked.

Ive checked through the forum, and there appears to be nothing similar to this problem. Can you please advise whether this is known, and if there is a work-around, please. I am concerned that there are a number of my other clients in similar situation who may get the same problem real soon.

Thanks

Ray

2

First, if you want to exclude these files from scanning, you should use UNC paths in the exclusion settings. This is because the exceptions are handled by the file system filter driver which never sees the drive letters (as these are actually logon-session specific) but always sees normalized (i.e. UNC in case of remote files) paths.

Thanks
Vlk

3

OK, I can understand that, but I had already done this as a catch-all, in case the system didnt recognise the drive assignments (call me paranoid).
This hasnt rectified the problem of read-only access to the files at all.
Any other suggestions / fixes, please?

4

What if you pause the Standard Shield provider, does that make a difference?

Thanks
Vlk