McAfee version 8 and slow shutdown of PC

[James Williams]

Have a nice new Athlon 3000 machine running Win XP Home and this used to
shut down in approx 5 seconds. Having been reasonably happy with McAfee
Virusscan v5 on older machines, I bought the retail version 8.0 and find the
following annoyances which I can't seem to cure, despite playing with any
configuration options I can find, and ticking/unticking various McAfee
related boxes in MSCONFIG.

1) Computer now takes 25 seconds to shut down or restart (time from when it
says 'Windows is Shutting Down' until it shuts off, or restarts as required)
There is no apparent disk activity during this time - it just sits there for
25 secs and then does what it used to.
2) Every time I start the PC I have to watch this stupid McAfee Security
Center box telling me that Virus Scan is installed, but their other
products, one by one, are not
3) Most of the configuration options that were present in version 5 seem to
have disappeared

Today I spent a wasted hour in an online chat with a McAfee Technical
support chap who, after spending over 45 minutes (very slowly) gathering
info from me about the problem, simply told me to uninstall the product, run
scandisk, run defrag, shut down everything else and reinstall. He assured me
this would cure the slow shutdown problem. Of course it did no such thing.
It's just the same it was before. At least during the time it was
uninstalled I was able to prove the PC will still shutdown/restart in 5
seconds, so the problem is definitely Virus Scan.

I would also like to remove the annoying Security Center, but it cannot be
uninstalled until VirusScan has been uninstalled. Having uninstalled
everything today, I then tried to reinstall just VirusScan alone from the
CD, but at the end of it all, I found it had installed Security Center too.

The product is version 8.0, Build 8.0.22, Engine 4.2.60, DAT files 4315

Apart from the obvious advice that McAfee is not the best, (or is a pile of
**** I expect someone will say) could anyone post any advice if they have
found ways to get around these annoyances, especially the slow shutdown
issue.

Thanks
James

 

[Ben]

Today I spent a wasted hour in an online chat with a McAfee Technical
support chap who, after spending over 45 minutes (very slowly) gathering
info from me about the problem, simply told me to uninstall the product, run
scandisk, run defrag, shut down everything else and reinstall. He assured me
this would cure the slow shutdown problem. Of course it did no such thing.
It's just the same it was before. At least during the time it was
uninstalled I was able to prove the PC will still shutdown/restart in 5
seconds, so the problem is definitely Virus Scan.

The product is version 8.0, Build 8.0.22, Engine 4.2.60, DAT files 4315

Check your settings for Virus Scan, as it has a lovely tendency to scan
every damn thing in sight before releasing the system prior to shut down.

 

[James Williams]

Check your settings for Virus Scan, as it has a lovely tendency to scan
every damn thing in sight before releasing the system prior to shut down.

Thanks - but unfortunately even with most options disabled (script stopper,
worm stopper) and it set to only scan program files rather than all files,
it still takes just as long to shutdown.

If you totally disable virus scan (turn off Active Shield) prior to
shutdown, then it will shutdown in 5 seconds as it used to.

I really cannot imagine why it needs to scan anything before shutdwown, and
why this can't be disabled. In any case, the HD light does not flicker
during this delayed shutdown, so I am not convinced that it's actually doing
anything anyway.

James

 

[Richard]

Thanks - but unfortunately even with most options disabled (script stopper,
worm stopper) and it set to only scan program files rather than all files,
it still takes just as long to shutdown.

If you totally disable virus scan (turn off Active Shield) prior to
shutdown, then it will shutdown in 5 seconds as it used to.

I really cannot imagine why it needs to scan anything before shutdwown, and
why this can't be disabled. In any case, the HD light does not flicker
during this delayed shutdown, so I am not convinced that it's actually doing
anything anyway.

James

I get the exact same shut-down problem that I have also tracked down
to McAfee Virusscan. If I disable the Virusscan and unload the
security centre agent the shutdown is really quick (like 1 or 2
seconds), otherwise it just sits there at the "Windows Is Shutting
Down" message for 30 seconds.

Did you manage to get a workaround for this - maybe there is a
programmatic way to switch off McAfee as part of the normal shut-down.

 

[Richard]

Having done a bit more research, I have found work-arounds for the
annoying security center loading screen and the slow shut-down.

To fix the security Center splash screen
Run regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Run Find the McAgentExe entry.
Change the command line to read
"c:\PROGRA~1\mcafee.com\agent\mcagent.exe /nosplash" (i.e. add
"/nosplash" on the end)
You'll not see the startup screen.

To fix the shutdown problem, you need to stop the VirusScan service
prior to shutdown.
You can do this with the command "NET STOP MCVSRte" at a command
prompt.
To automatically carry out this command:
Create a batch file StopVScan.bat with one line entry NET STOP MCVSRte
Place the file in the following directory:
C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown\
Run the group policy editor
- type gpedit.msc in the Start->Run box.
Navigate to:
LocalConfiguration->ComputerConfiguration->WindowsSettings->Scripts->Shutdown
and browse to the batchfile that you just created.

Now whenever you do a shut-down/restart windows will run the batch
file automatically (after "Saving Your Settings" and before "Windows
Is Shutting Down"). It takes 3 or 4 seconds for the VirusScan to
stop, but you don't have the 30 second delay on the "Shutting Down"
message.

Hope that helps
Regards
Richard

 

[Peacekeeper]

I knew the first 1 it is listed in the help forums on the mcafee site. The
second option is interesting I have asked our tech there for comment on it
and will try it myself when I get home.

 

[James Williams]

Having done a bit more research, I have found work-arounds for the
annoying security center loading screen and the slow shut-down.

To fix the security Center splash screen
Run regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Run Find the McAgentExe entry.
Change the command line to read
"c:\PROGRA~1\mcafee.com\agent\mcagent.exe /nosplash" (i.e. add
"/nosplash" on the end)
You'll not see the startup screen.

To fix the shutdown problem, you need to stop the VirusScan service
prior to shutdown.
You can do this with the command "NET STOP MCVSRte" at a command
prompt.
To automatically carry out this command:
Create a batch file StopVScan.bat with one line entry NET STOP MCVSRte
Place the file in the following directory:
C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown\
Run the group policy editor
- type gpedit.msc in the Start->Run box.
Navigate to:
LocalConfiguration->ComputerConfiguration->WindowsSettings->Scripts->Shutdow
n
and browse to the batchfile that you just created.

Now whenever you do a shut-down/restart windows will run the batch
file automatically (after "Saving Your Settings" and before "Windows
Is Shutting Down"). It takes 3 or 4 seconds for the VirusScan to
stop, but you don't have the 30 second delay on the "Shutting Down"
message.

Hope that helps
Regards
Richard

Many thanks Richard for your most helpful advice - with this (and your help
by email) I no longer have to suffer that annoying splash screen or the slow
shutdown.

(Note to others: as Group Policy is not installed in Win XP Home edition I
fixed the slow shutdown problem by putting

NET STOP MCVSRte
shutdown -s -t 00 [ or shutdown -r -t 00 ]

in a batch file and now have an icon for each of Shutdown and Restart on my
desktop that runs either of these batch files. Works a treat)

Cheers
James