Performance issues with MS Office and Charter High-Speed Security Suite (aka F-Secure)

[Mike Fink]

Hello,

I've switched my AV software to the Charter High-Speed Security Suite (which
is just F-Secure Internet Security Suite) since my NAV subscription recently
expired and Charter provides this software free of charge.

Unfortunately there has been some cost in the form of nagging performance
problems the first time any MS-Office (Office 2000 is what I was using at
the time) app has been opened. For example, on a clean boot when I start
Outlook, Word, Excel, etc. the system will come to a near grinding halt
until I "unload" the AV software from the icon tray. It takes several
minutes to complete the operation but is worth it since I don't like doing
hard power downs. This behavior has happened ever since the new AV software
has been installed earlier this year.

In light of this problem I reloaded my whole system (formatted drives and
all). The first thing I installed was F-Secure and things seemed to be
going OK. Then when I started to install (yes install) MS Office 2003
things started to drag until I unloaded the AV software. So I reloaded the
system, upgraded Office, and still saw the same problem.

I've checked the task manager when these spells occur and don't see anything
pegging CPU or memory so am at a loss to explain what's going on.

So far I haven't gotten any response to my inquiry on the F-Secure site and
was wondering if anyone in the ether has experienced something similar and
could provide some clues. Also are there other utils that might tell me
more specifically why the performance is dragging since task manager
doesn't?

If you want to reply via email, please remove the _XX_ in my addr.

Thanks!
Mike

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Mike

Using AVG 7 ( freeware ) here with no problems.

Please look in the System and Application logs in Event
Viewer for Warning and Error Reports over the last 2
days use and post copies here.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When
researching the meaning of the error, information
regarding Event ID, Source and Description are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&sd=tech

Part of the Description of the error will include a link,
which you should double click for further information.
You can copy using copy and paste. Often the link will,
however, say there is no further information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer
and double click on the error you want to copy. In the window,
which appears is a button resembling two pages. Double click
the button and close Event Viewer. Now start your message
(email) and do a paste into the body of the message. This will
paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report complete
with links into the message. Make sure this is the first paste
after exiting from Event Viewer.


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
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[Echo S]

I would look in F-Prot's various settings for anything like an Office
plug-in or add-in or scan or whatever and disable it.

Also, if you have WinXP SP2, it seems you may need a "support package" for
F-Secure, too. See
http://support.f-secure.it/ita/corporate/supportissue/general/xpsp2.shtml

 

[DL]

No problems here using F-Secure
ie using the f-secure office plugin does give some delay in opening any
office doc, but I dont believe it any more than any office av plugin

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Mike

I just did a Google check based on Office 2003 slow and the
numbers returned was large?

I would check your pagefile usage,

You can check on pagefile (virtual memory) usage with Page File Monitor for
XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

If you get anything much more than 20 / 30 mb virtual memory usage you
need to add RAM memory. The system uses virtual memory for a
limited number of tasks rather than RAM memory.

Make sure you study the readme.txt file carefully to ensure you get the
utility to work as it should.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~