I’m experimenting a very low response every time I open a folder full of files, for example My Music and My Pictures folders - yes, they’re not the executable type.
Both folders as many others I have contains several gigabytes of data and LOTS of files, and both takes few seconds to open while avast! is scanning them. Also, colaterally, avast! processes jump to %99 leaving computer virtually unusable for the time it takes to scan whole data - you know, music stop playing, video players go erratic, Photoshop and Opera goes dead and so on.
I already put My Music and My Pictures in the exclussions list in the realtime scanner provider but it doesn’t seems to work. ???
Any guess? I would be happy if I can make avast! bypass -ignore- scanning those folders as well some other too.
You don’t mention what your standard shield sensitivity or settings are so I couldn’t suggest why ?
On the default settings and Normal sensitivity it shouldn’t be scanning files within the folder unless they are accessed.
Yup, I forget that. I’m using the provider at default Normal sensivity. I run alongside avast! RegDefend from GhostSecurity.com and XPsp2 built-in firewall which are transparent to system nearly all the time.
If I pause or stop the realtime provider folders shows up way lot faster. May be creation/reading of thumbanils make avast! work so hard?
How about having a Media folder and then sub-folders for Images, Music, Video, etc. that way when you open the Media folder it doesn’t do any scan or if you have more sub-folders it would only have a limited sub-section.
Personally I can’t understand this as I have a Media folder nothing like the size of yours mainly for images and I have the View display images and the only file that is scanned is thumbs.db, even if I change this View to details I don’t have any files scanned just because I open the folder.
So there is something else going on in your system, what if you enable the Show detailed info on performed actions in the standard shield and see what files are being accessed. See my Standard Shield, Scanner (Advanced) settings.
Do you have any exotic folder options or the like as assessing a file for its icon shouldn’t create this sort of activity ?
well, I indeed have a subfolder inside My Music folder named “Toda la música” (you can translate it as Whole music or All the music, pretty original isn’t it? where lies all the music files and folders; same thing with My Pictures.
From what you say, my conclusion is: the delay is produced because avast! do scan the thumbnails database file, and that file is open on every access to the folder and updated when discovered new images. So, if this file is opened/updated as many times as images are in the local folder AND subfolders also contains a thumbnail database, there then avast! would have a lot of work scanning all those accessed thumbnails databases (I hope you can follow my square english
What leave me still intrigued is why avast! still do a scan on My Music folder -and others as well- when I explicitly added it (them) to the exculssion box in the Standard Shield. ???
Thanx anyway!!
One more help please: I did read few days ago a thread (in this forum) directing on how to make avast! delay some minutes before loading itself, thus leaving system free to load every other drivers and applications on log in. I can’t found that post now, do you know this tweak? I want to play a little with it.
From what you say, my conclusion is: the delay is produced because avast! do scan the thumbnails database file, and that file is open on every access to the folder and updated when discovered new images.
Yes it may scan the thumbs.db file but that is a relatively small file and wouldn’t account for the kind of delay you are talking about.
As Tech asked what is the text path you have put into the standard shield exclusions (we want to see the full path, everything you entered to see if there is something wrong) ?
I notice that you have accented letters in the folder name, I don’t know if this might have any impact on the exclusion failing.
For general safety you should avoid . and use something like *.mp3 or *.avi only excluding media files any other file in that folder should be scanned as otherwise there is too big a security hole.
I:\Documentos de Martín\Mi música\Toda la música*.*
Yes, I agree non-standard characters may produce some glitchs in lot of applications and that’s why I try to avoid using them every time I can in both folder and file names, but since My Music folder in spanish is translated by default as Mi Música -with accented u- by Microsoft itself, I think I should not concern very much about this because if any program don’t work with “Mi Música” path name, which is default Windows name for My Music folder, then I’m free to name as I want any subfolder, and if any application works correctly with non-standard characters in folders and file names paths, then I haven’t to worry about this. In this case I don’t think the accented characters are bugging avast! because avast! works very nice with lot of non-standard characters.
David: you’re right when pointing corcern using incorrect wildcards configuration in the exclussion dialog, aka . against *.mp3 or *.ogg or *.wma etc., you have a very good point here and I will correct it, but anyway it would be very hard to skip any danger this way because I never put any executable file there and in case any malware slips to that folder I think Standard Shield should detect it inmediatly - and of course if I see a file that makes me think “what’s this? how came this file here?” it will be quarantained at the moment.
About the delay I experiment when browsing folders full of multimedia -the original topic of this thread- I have a guess about what’s happening.
As I told you I have a LOT files in some folders, and the problem I think is when Windows itself access those folders and update the timestamps.
Just to try, I deactivated avast! and guess what? there was STILL a delay, one second or so less than while avast! active, but still a delay.
I think I can uncheck the Windows “save date of last file access” feature to get lightning fast access to any folder but this way I will be rendering near unusable the disk defragmentation tool -PerfectDisk-, which gives a very boost to speed every time I fully defragment hard disks.
If you agree then let’s close this thread and move to the next post! Thanx a lot for your time guys =)
Personally I ‘Never’ user the My Documents folder, I much prefer to have my own document folder structure.
However, as the my document structure is set-up automatically, here is the path to the my music folder, D:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music and that path differs greatly to yours as it is within the Documents and Settings folder, Know it is possible to change the location so I guess you have done that.
The My Documents folder is a somewhat strange folder and not like other folders so I don’t know if that may have an effect in the failure of your exclusion.
I have my media files with the other files (in the structure I mentioned before) that I don’t want to lose so everything is together making back-up easier.
You might not put executable files in the folder, but it isn’t you I’m concerned about, malicious files are being placed in the strangest of folders, Internet Temp, temp folders, system folders, the recycle bin, all designed to confuse and obfuscate things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if maleware wasn’t placed anywhere on your system.
About My Docs tree sctructure I must say when I first switched to Windows it took a while for me to feel at home with it - in fact only after several time using WinXP I can say Windows is starting to be the thing ‘they’ marketed long time ago.
I now use it a lot because in some way simplifies my working with data.
BTW, your directory tree reminds me old times when under DOS I had a similar structure, in that days I used Norton Commander to manage computer because it easy to switch to and from directories (and not ‘folders’!) via it excellent two panel interface.
BTW, your directory tree reminds me old times when under DOS I had a similar structure
Yes that is to a degree where I learnt my discipline having a structure to make it easier to find things, and I too often refer to directories and not folders.
where lies all the music files and folders; same thing with My Pictures. 