5 Day scan and counting!

[Tipster]

I have installed and run MS AntiSpyWare on two desktop
computers and had it work wonderful. It removed just
about all the problems I was having and I simply used 2
other progs to clean up the ones it missed. I now have
installed it on my fiance's laptop in an attempt to clean
it out too. It has now been running for 5 days. It went
through the first 20k files in about 10 5-10 minutes (the
amount of time a scan takes on my desktop) but then
slowed down. It has now been scanning files in the
C:\WINDOWS\system32\.......... I am now at file #41785.
I don't even remember my desktop having close to this
many files, and I have more programs installed on it. It
takes about 30 seconds to fully scan one file. What in
the heck is going on with this? I appreciate the help.
Thanks.

Tipster

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Kill it. Use ctrl-alt-delete to end the scanning and restart the laptop.

In some situations, the scan loops and leaks memory. From your description,
it doesn't sound as though it is looping--it sounds as though there is
perceptable progress, but I would guess that it has eaten all the available
ram and is getting slower as it goes because of increase paging.

I'd recommend doing some cleaning with other products--Ad-aware, and Spybot
Search & Destroy, to get the system a bit cleaner before trying Microsoft
Antispyware again. You might also want to try Microsoft Antispyware in safe
mode (still after cleaning with other things first)--that gives it a better
shot at some threats.

I'm not one to give up on the product, but this is beyond what's
reasonable--interesting, though--hope the Microsoft folks reading this put
up a nice plaque on a wall or whiteboard for your record-setting attempt!

Keep us informed--I'd be interested to know what bugs are found in the end,
and how many entities (files, registry entries, etc.) I've seen some
reports of scans finding thousands of registry entries--but you don't
mention that?

 

[Andre Da Costa]

I notice that MSAS is getting stuck on files in the
C:\WINDOWS\system32\..........