MS Anti-spyware causes hard drive problems

[JT]

I have MS Anti-spyware installed on my Dell PC. It is
scheduled to run nightly at 2am. It used to run fine
until I put the 2/16 update on the computer. Now when it
runs my computer dies with a 'serious' error. When check
ing the possible causes of the error, the MS information
says certain types of scanners can cause the hard drive
to lose communication. Last night I turned off the scan
and in the morning my computer was still up and running.
I did some drive checking and there are no errors on my
hard drive. The problem only happens if I run the MS
Spyware scan.

 

[plun]

I have MS Anti-spyware installed on my Dell PC. It is
scheduled to run nightly at 2am. It used to run fine
until I put the 2/16 update on the computer. Now when it
runs my computer dies with a 'serious' error. When check
ing the possible causes of the error, the MS information
says certain types of scanners can cause the hard drive
to lose communication. Last night I turned off the scan
and in the morning my computer was still up and running.
I did some drive checking and there are no errors on my
hard drive. The problem only happens if I run the MS
Spyware scan.

Hi

Maybe your hard drive is overfilled with junk ? Try to
empty all temporarily junk with this tool. I have noticed when
I scan with MSAS in a PC with non removed temporarily files
that this is
really tough with all of these small junk files.

www.ccleaner.com

 

[Andre Da Costa]

Restart your computer in safe mode and do the following things, disk clean
up, defrag.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

Defrag:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/defrag.mspx

 

[plun]

Restart your computer in safe mode and do the following things, disk clean
up, defrag.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

Defrag:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/defrag.mspx

Disk cleanup tool is to weak for all temporarily
junk...........

 

[Andre Da Costa]

but it comes with Windows and its free.

 

[plun]

but it comes with Windows and its free.

Well, you can find a lot of software which is free and much
better

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I'd suggest several possible actions.

1) uninstall Microsoft Antispyware
(and wait for another build to be released to re-test)
2) try an update install to the current installation (Control Panel, add or
remove programs, Microsoft Antispyware, change, update.)
3) variant of 1--uninstall, and then reinstall.

1) is the least risky of the three, but I believe there's a good chance of
success with either 2 or three as well. If you get another crash, I'd
uninstall and leave it that way.

I don't know if your system is creating minidumps for these crashes. I'm
certain that the Microsoft developers would be interested in these dumps if
they exist.