I had a big problem on my most recent scan. (I am running Avast 4.8 Home Edition on Windows XP.)
After doing a thorough scan of my computer, the results page indicated that it was “unable to scan” many files because the “archive id password protected,” and some because the “Installer/GZIP/CAB/OLE archive is password protected.” Even worse, it could not move worms to the chest, nor could it delete them, because, it says, “The operation is not supported for this type of archive.”
Is there an easy way to fix this? Avast seemed to be slightly better than avg in the reviews I read, but if I can’t fix this easily, I might be better off with avg.
Many programs (usually security based ones) password protect their files for legitimate reasons such as AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy, there are others (and avast doesn’t know the password or have any way of using it even if it did know it). Do you use any other security based programs ?
When you run scans with the above programs and you delete harmful entries that they detect, a copy is kept (in quarantine/restore/backup) in case you need to reverse what you did. These are usually password protected, you should do some housekeeping and delete old backup/recovery/quarantine entries (older than two weeks or so), this will reduce the numbers of files that can’t be scanned.
By examining 1) the reason given by avast! for not being able to scan the files, 2) the location of the files, you can get an idea of what program they relate to. You may need to expand the column headings to see all the text.
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned, maybe a packaging problem with the archive file.
Thanks, but that doesn’t answer my more urgent question about the worm it can’t do anything with (when trying to move it to the chest OR delete it, it says, “The operation is not supported for this type of archive.”
I ran a boot time scan, but wasn’t able to view the results, so I don’t even know what happened in that scan. Anywhere I could view those (couldn’t find anything in log viewer)? How about the worm?
The file is inside an archive file (it’s inert there and can’t harm, don’t worry).
Drop down the full name of the file, continue the scanning, and at the end you can post its full path and name here.
The boot-time scan report file is Avast4\DATA\report\aswBoot.txt).
I can’t do that. “View Scan Reports” and “Last Scan Results” are always grayed out whenever I use the program. So short of running the several-hour-long scan whenever I just want to see the results, I’ll need an alternate way to get there. I’m sure there is one… can you tell me how to get to it?
Okay, the worm didn’t show up there, but I’m sure it wasn’t meant to – there were just a couple of OLE corruptions, which I think are no big deal. Unless I’m wrong…?
Thanks!
EDIT: Redid the scan. Here’s the information about the worm:
File Name: C:\Documents and Settings\Francesca Gomes\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst\Archive Folders\Top of Personal Folders\Deleted
Items\iwsg\account-details.zip\account-details.doc .exe
File Name: C:\Documents and Settings\Francesca Gomes\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst\Archive Folders\Top of Personal Folders\Deleted
Items\iwsg\account-details.zip