Can you have two (2) AV's installed & running?

Hi all. Sorry if this seems a dumb question but I would like to know if there are any problems with having tw0 AV programs running at the same time? specifically I have NOD32 & McAfee Enterprise v 8 running. Are there any known problems/conflicts, impacts on Internet access or local processing?

thanks for any help provided.

Regards,
Ron Driscoll

 

you should not under any circumstances have two resident scanners active at the same time. Use one as on demand and one as on access and that will usually work.

 

bigc73542,

Thanks for the response. I accept what you advise. But can you possibly explain what happens if two scanners run at the same time?

Regards,
Ron Driscoll

 

they both try to use the same resources at the same time and it is very common for them to just lock your computer up. Or another thing that can happen is that they will actually cancel out each others efficency so that you are actually less protected than you would be with just one scanner.

 

bigc73542,

OK thanks for that. It all makes sense. Regards,Ron Driscoll

 

You could have two AVs on your system, but as others have said, only one of them should have real-time protection enabled otherwise it's likely you'd run into problems.

Personally, I'd stick to using one AV.

 

A couple of times I have tried to use AVG as a backup scanner with another AV.

I soon encountered the problem of not being able to receive email even though AVG was not being used. When I uninstalled AVG all was well.

I do not consider this unique to AVG, but just another example of 2 AVs not working together, even though on is only used as an on-demand scanner.

I do not have the knowledge to explain it, but that is what happened twice.
I would not have two Avs on my computer at the same time.

Jerry

 

Two AV are overkill, used in either way. Online scanner as second line is OK.

 

In addition to what you were already told , using two AVs won't make sure more secure but even it will make you less secure .

Another example is when a threat is on your computer (both AVs have definitions for it) they start fighting which one will first kill it .The faster one should pop-up and do the appropriate action but if they are equal , then one wil block the threat , the other won't be able to disinfect it and so you will have the thread + 2 products fighting each other . Simple , when two are in conflict , the third wins ! Use only NOD32

 

If you want to have 2 AVs installed, then make sure that the services of the second AV are disabled. Antivir and AVG Free work fine with services disabled (as on-demand), but you need to enable update service, when you want to update them. MWAV is a good on-demand choise.