PG Free on ZA Pro makes my puter whizzzz

[kwesi]

Hello. I've been trialling PG Free for about a week, & have noticed a quite remarkable [as David Coleman used to say:)] improvement in boot-up times. It's down to about 6 seconds, I estimate, when it used to take about 18 to 22 secs of waiting.

I think that the improvement is down to PG guarding vsmon.exe, as the clue seems to be that PG now blocks the attempts of lsass.exe to gain write access on vsmon.exe.

The scenario that I assume is that when I didn't have PG, ZA Pro probably wrestled a little bit with lsass.exe, upon boot-up, without me being aware of it. Is there any credence to that, folks? Thanks.

[Pilli]

Hi Kwesi, I take it you have ZA's own guard disabled? If so it maybe that Process Guards kernel level protection is more efficient than ZA's.

Just a thought. Pilli :)

[kwesi]

-{ Quote: "Hi Kwesi, I take it you have ZA's own guard disabled? " }-

Hi, Pilli. Thanks for your reply. You don't mean that there's some ZA self-protection process that I may have set to disabled? I'd always assumed that ZA Pro just goes its own merry way, & protects itself automatically.

Hmmm... I've checked & I do have "Protect the ZA Client" switched on, so I assume that that's what you meant?

[Pilli]

Yes Kwesi, I think that's it though I do not use ZA.
I am sure another ZA user will comment :)

[Devinco]

Hi Kwesi,

I have Protect the ZA Client on and have a password set for ZAP and no problems with PG. Works well together.

[Peter2150]

I also have turned off protecting the ZA Client. I let PG handle all of that.

[kwesi]

Thanks for your replies, one and all. I still don't know why the positive effect on my system. Interestingly, I notice that when I start up in a different (XP) administrator account, there is no attempt by lsass.exe to write to vsmon (boot-up in that account has always been fast, which I put down to a smaller user profile). I'll keep puzzling on this one.

If I upgrade to the PG full version, which I am very likely to do, given the positive boot-up effect, then I will test the difference between having ZA client protection off and on.

Having both PG & ZA protection on, instinctively appeals, as the familiar belt-and-braces approach beloved by we Security Freaks :). One thing about these forums - I don't feel paranoid at all here (the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest syndrome?); one of my mates, who used to download music & film without any protection at all, soon stopped smirking at my talk of anti-malware, FW, AV, AT, etc., when he had a rude msg appear on his monitor after an infection...

I fink I'll just carry on takin' me medication, Doc.