When I do a thorough scan with avast at the end it says that it cant scan certain files on my computer. Does anyone know how to change this? Thanks for the help.
Most likely these are password protected files and avast has no way of knowing the passwords. Such files could be Windows files, other security program files, etc. Can you give some examples of such files that can not be scanned?
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).
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. If you can give some examples of those file names, the locations and reason given why it can’t be scanned might help us further ?
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to be scanned.
Okay they were some security programs that were the ones that didn’t get scanned.
That’s normal. The files would be encrypted, avast would see them as password protected. You can’t do anything about it.
The encrypting is there to keep anything from access the files from outside the quarantined area.
Here is a file mine will not scan…
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Allume Systems\Zip Folders\00000005\CD2\setup.exe
Result…
Unable to scan: File is offline - it is currently not available.
There are hundreds of others as well.
Just guessing… but is the file really there in that folder when the scan engine tries to scan it?
Does it exist?
The files that weren’t getting scanned were in application data. Like you said there were a bunch. I am not sure if these files exist, I can scan again and make a list of what isn’t being scanned if you like.
Sure, you can post them.