Ok I have AVAST pro 4.8 all things are up to date. I made a post earlier about when I run a scan it picks up alot of stuff under the topic “password protected cant be scanned”.
I was told to turn system restore off then turn it back on and this should fix everything. And I think it did.
Well today I decided to run another scan (I like to run them every other week). What I want to know is do I have to do this everytime? turn restore on- restore off. then scan??
I select Archive files when I do a scan also. Do I need to check that??
Turning of system restore will make no difference unless the files which are password protected are in the system volume information folder/s.
Leave system restore alone as that is your safety net and continually disabling it kills what little protection it provides.
Files that can’t be scanned are just that, not an indication they are suspicious/infected, just unable to 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 ?
Archive (zip, rar, etc.) files are by their nature are inert, you need to extract the files and then you have to run them to be a threat. Long before that happens avast’s Standard Shield should have scanned them and before an executable is run that is scanned.
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.