speech recognition software and AV scanning

[Louise]

Win XP Pro sp2 with MS security turned off, P4 3.2, 2 gig of ram and
plenty of SATA hard drive space. Mostly use Firefox and I do use
Outlook.

I have a Linksys NAT router and I run Sygate Pro as my software
firewall. I am the only one to touch my machine.

I am also running a trial version of Avast Pro which seems to work very
well. Their tech support even answere an emailed question promptly and
coherently! I was pleased.

Right now I have all the shields/providers running but I think something
is slowing down my machine:

I run Dragon Naturally Speaking (speech recognition) and I use it mostly
in Word 2002.

Avast! scans every file every time it is modified, changed, opened or
closed.

Since I dictate long documents into Word, I save the working file on a
very frequent basis (well taught in the days of 5 1/4 floppies).
Everytime I save, Avast! checks.

Dragon Naturally Speaking is constantly interacting with the user.
Everytime a dictated correction is made, Avast checks because changes
are made to the file. Everytime a new speech phrase or patter is
recognized, this adds to one of Dragon's files and adjust the file
according.

It seems that Dragon Naturally Speaking and Word together, may be being
slowed down by Avast's vigorous checking.

Would I be reasonably safe if I were to go to Standard Shield/customize
and then uncheck the box that says "scan changed/modified files".

Does every AV check every file that changes? Does Norrton? I used to
use Norton and don't remember seeing that.

Louise

 

[Virus Guy]

I am also running a trial version of Avast Pro which seems to
work very well.

How do you know that any given AV software is "working very well" ???

Is your computer that exposed, that infected with viruses that you're
actually able to run different AV software and see a difference in
what they're detecting?

How do you know that your previous AV software didn't "work very well"
?

 

[Louise]

How do you know that any given AV software is "working very well" ???

Is your computer that exposed, that infected with viruses that you're
actually able to run different AV software and see a difference in
what they're detecting?

How do you know that your previous AV software didn't "work very well"
?

Because it was Norton Norton is known to be bloatware, Symantec
provides nothing in the way of decent tech support unless you pay for it
and it only updated once a week.

Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

Louise

 

[optikl]

It seems that Dragon Naturally Speaking and Word together, may be being
slowed down by Avast's vigorous checking.

Would I be reasonably safe if I were to go to Standard Shield/customize
and then uncheck the box that says "scan changed/modified files".

Does every AV check every file that changes? Does Norrton? I used to
use Norton and don't remember seeing that.

If you follow a safe computing regimen, there is little reason to
subject every file on your system to incessant scanning for malware.

 

[Louise]

If you follow a safe computing regimen, there is little reason to
subject every file on your system to incessant scanning for malware.

Thanks. I also posted on the Avast board and got essentially the same
recommendation from the moderator there.

I've now disabled the scanning of every changed and modified file. It
looks to me like my whole machine is running just a bit faster and the
speech recognition is definitely better.

Louise