Windows Defender Autorun

[Guest]

Autorun is set to occur at 11:00PM. However, defender starts running at
various times. Today it was 4:05 PM. Yesterday it was 10:15 am. Every time
is different. PC is running up todate XP and system clock is set correctly.
Also running McAfee. When Defender runs it consumes 50 % of my 512 m memory.
Any ideas?

 

[Dave M]

The scheduled scan in Defender is set to run at an *Approximate* time via
the Options Panel, and will only run while an authorized user is actively
logged on. If the scheduled scan time is missed, then Defender attempts to
make up the missed scan shortly after an authorized user logs back on. The
approximate scheduled scan time can vary by +- an hour.

The helpfile for Defender says:
"We recommend that you schedule a daily quick scan. A quick scan will check
the areas of your computer that spyware and other potentially unwanted
software is most likely to infect. If you want Windows Defender to check
all files and programs on your computer, run or schedule a full scan."

My own quick scan takes less than 5 minutes, uses less than 50% CPU on a
hyperthreaded system, and I only do a full scan once a month or so, unless
the quick scan uncovers something abnormal, then I run an out of cycle full
system scan. HTH

 

[Dave M]

Sorry, I missed you're reference to memory and was thinking CPU. That does
sound like system contention. I don't have McAfee so I can't offer any
specifics, but Norton's has a feature called "protection for my Symantec
Product" which detects other real-time scanners accessing any of Symantec's
folders... I had to disable that PUPpy. You might try disconnecting from
the net, turning off McAfee, then running Defender to see if there's any
difference in behavior. Sometimes multiple real-time security protection
features whatever their function are just flat out incompatible.