Whenever I run a scan, then when it’s done, I look at the results of the scan and there’s a bunch of things that say:
Unable to scan: archive is password protected
Unable to scan: GZIP archive is corrupted
Unable to scan: CHM arcive is corrupted
Unable to scan: installer archive is corrupted
What does all that mean?
This usually means that it password protected by another antimalware porgram like spybot for example. This password would be built into the program, not one you have put there. Or the file is packed in a packer that avast can’t unpack. This is generally nothing to worry about.
Welcome to the forum.
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.
Info provided by DavidR 8)
Thanks for the replies!
Oh, and I use AdAware too, so…