Exlusions in Stardard shield not working

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

HI
I have a small problem with exclusions in Standard shield.

What I am try to achieve is have avast NOT react in a folder and its subfolders to any viruses (This computer is running a mail server, mail enable, and it uses this folder to do “its own” virus detection).

I have done the following:
Under program settings/ exclusions I have added
c:\program files\mail enable*
Under Standard shield/ customize/ Advanced/ I have added
C:\PROGRAM FILES\MAIL ENABLE*
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Scratch*
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Scratch*.mai

With this setup I keep getting a avast warning pop-up screen.

Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong?

2

Maybe if you add the Short path too…
C:\Program~1\Mail~1\Scrathch*.mai

Did you boot after adding the files to the Exclusion list?

3

HI
Yes, I did reboot after the changes.
I will try your suggestion.
C:\Program~1\Mail~1\Scrathch*.mai

If I add “C:\Program~1\Mail~1\Scrathch*”, can expect that all files in that directory, and its subfolders will not be scanned?

4

If that short path is the correct one… I’ll use it at the same time of the ‘long’ path.
Remember to boot 8)

5

ok, all seems good now.
I have had no more problems (fingers crossed)
Thanks for your help
The line I included was:
“C:\Progra~1\Mailen~1\Scratch*”
This seems to have made the difference
Thanks again

6

Hope I’m not budding in, but I have a similar problem. In the Standard Shield under the Advanced tab I place:
E:\Backups*.zip

The noted zip files are encrypted and Avast can’t deal with them anyways so I want to skip them and thereby reduce the scan time which is now over 8 hours. The problem is that Avast doesn’t recognize that path. I’m speculating that the reason is due to the fact that all zip files are in subfolders of which there are hundreds. If this is true, is there anyway to specify the folder and all subfolders? By the way, I did reboot after adding the new path. Thanks.

7

The path is OK and avast! should handle it correctly, but why are you putting it into the list of Standard Shield exclusion? I mean, the ZIP files are not scanned on access anyway by default… don’t you rather want the exclusions for the on-demand scanner?

8

Yes, I want the exclusions for the on-demand scanner.

9

For the other providers (on-demmand scanning):
Right click the ‘a’ blue icon, click Program Settings.
Go to Exclusions tab and click on Add button…

But take in account what Igor says :wink:

10

Thanks for the feedback. I should say that my primary objective is to reduce on-demand scan time which is now running over 8 hours! I figure that if Avast can’t handle encrypted zip files, I might as well exclude them and save the scan time. I’ve tested your suggestion and indeed it does now bypass the *.zip files. I’m thinking that this specification is better than simply:
E:\Backups*
which would bypass all files including possible viruses. Is this a valid point? I guess another concern is that maybe it takes Avast as long to figure out that the file is on the Exclusion list as it does to figure out it can’t process it due to being encrypted.

11

Well not selecting archives in your on-demand scan will do it better than using exclusions.

Archive (zip, etc.) files are by there nature inert, you need to unpack them and then run any executable for them to be a threat. Long before that happens the Standard Shield should have scanned the contents and before an executable is run that is scanned. I also don’t use a Thorough sensitivity rather the Standard scan, so with this my scan takes a little over 8 minutes but is scanning only 6.8GB of qualifying data. This duration will obviously depend on the data you have on your HDD.

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.