NT-The never ending virus scan

[joanmcq]

Friday I started a virus scan Friday morning before leaving for work. Its still running. This morning it was scanning my 2003 ATX files; last night it was iTunes and was going quickly. the ATX files go very very slow. I've used AVG since November and the scans were normal until this one. The only change has been loading ATX 2008, I think. May have done the iPods since then too. Its been running so long that I'm getting warnings that the antivirus program is not up to date anymore, and I know there was some sort of critical IE patch needed as well. Even when I stopped the scan to check email, the internet ran slow as mud, but I'm not sure if that was related. I gave up and checked the email on my iPod on our wireless network downstairs which was running fine.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening? The only things caught in the scan has been tracking cookies.

[rchinchilla]

I wouldn't scan the the tax files with the entire system. Remember that these files are encrypted with a crazy CCH algorithm. This will cause your anti-virus application to try to go through the entire file to see if it finds anything suspicious. That will definitely make your computer lag.

Why don't you transfer all your files over to the computer in the basement and then run the anti-virus on the tax files there. Since you are rarely using the computer in the basement their shouldn't be a problem. I have never had a virus hide in tax files. Since viruses are made for the masses, they usually leach on to common applications such as internet explorer, msn messenger, microsoft word, etc. Not ATX.

However scan them for your safety,

Regards,

Roger

[joanmcq]

I only have one computer; I can check my email on my iPod Touch, but that & internet is about it. I've always done complete scans & its never been a problem until now; would take a few hours so that's why I'd do it overnight or while I was at work. Just hit 'scan computer' and go. & the first scan I did when I first got rid of Norton & put AVG on went fine & I have ATX files & programs from 1997 to now on the computer. Just not a lot of data files on those early years! Five days is ridiculous! any other ideas as to what might be happening?

[rchinchilla]

Did this happen after the ATX install? Did you carry forward prior year data? How many clients?

[Mel in Hawaii]

I don't know about current files, but the old ATX files used to use compression so it may be trying to uncompress each file to check inside it...

But if it runs slowly, reboot the computer. If it still runs slowly, run an update on the Anti-virus software and reboot again.

[joanmcq]

Happened after the 2008 install & I have about 100 clients. I do have the old files compressed. I ended up stopping the scan and rebooting after it went 5+ days and counting. Haven't re-run it yet. The CPU was running at 100% which happens sometimes, but stopped with the reboot.

Opened my return on the new ATX; it was sllloooooowwwwww. Mine is a particularly big file but I hope it doesn't always open returns that slow. My computer is getting old but I'm hoping to get another year or two out of it.