KAV, ISTREAMS, AND WINDOWS XP...

I took off KAV recently and couldn't delete the ISTREAMS when uninstalling cause it would cause BSOD errors after reboot. Tried that same thing in safe mode after rebuilding that same windows image. The question is can those istream (ADS) stuff stay without causing problems or should I waste time and reformat from start? I am running NOD32 right now instead of KAV 5.0 for now. I mean I read somewhere that not every scanner can scan ADS files and well I just want to know if they are going to be a future problem waiting to happen?

dja2k

 

the ads are how KAV stores data. there are ways to remove them so don't format! i think KAV even has a program which will do it for you. and maybe there's something by sysinternals too.

maybe you should ask for the thread to be moved to the AV forum

 

I know there are ways to remove them, I already tried them but that is what causes the BSOD errors after they are removed.

dja2k

 

Nod scans ADS, but you can try ADS Spy to remove, it's slow, but removes most of them.

 

Yeah I know about ADS Spy, but there is no way I will finish checking the 4000 plus entries that stayed since that program has no check all option. I did remove the streams once with the KAV uninstall like I said, but when I restarted, then if I remember correctly, Nod32 took forever to start after its' splash screen and then the blue screen BSOD. Then every reboot, blue screens. I mean they don't bother me at all , but what if I change AV's then they can't scan this files which you can see there are a lot of them.

dja2k

 

During the KAV 5 uninstall process, it asks if you want to remove iStreams. Doesn't that remove them all? I've just clicked on the check box to remove them, and I haven't run into any problems.

 

Thats one of the things I tried, but when I restart, like I said NOD32 stalls and then blue screen comes out.

dja2k

 

Right click an entry and select all.

 

dja2k, do you have KAV and NOD32 installed together? Or did you uninstall KAV and installed NOD32 before rebooting?

 

KAV was uninstalled while NOD32 was installed as well. Only KAV was active of course, after the uninstall of KAV, I went ahead and made the changes to make NOD32 active which after I rebooted and the blue screens then happened after the restart.

dja2k

 

Yeah that works under normal mode but didn't work for me in safe mode, don't really know why though. I tried to do it in safe mode cause supposetly it is better than in normal mode. Nevertheless, if the KAV utility didn't work, don't think this will either. I will try it again to remove them with ADSPY when I have to time in normal mode.

dja2k

UPDATE:
I found out that the right click option doesn't work after it is finished on my sytem, though I have to keep pressing select all while the scan is running and scrolling. That will work.

 

Try closing down all your running apps,open ads spy then before you run it end explorers process.See if it runs ok.

To kick explorer back in,task manager,applications tab,new task,type explorer.You probably know this but in case someone else wants to try it.

 

Well nor in normal mode nor safe mode does this ADSPY program remove any of the KAV streams left over.

dja2k

 

If you want to get rid of any and all ads you could do what I did a fair while ago when I got caught with Kav ads.

Note that I wouldn't have done this if I didn't have ghost images as backups so I'll leave it up to you.

I used partition magic to change C drive to fat32 and then back to ntfs.Luckily this went without any probs my end.

 

Oh I already have images , how do you think I keep going back to before I tried to uninstall the streams. So you telling me that changing from NTFS to FAT32 and then back to NTFS will delete the streams?

dja2k

 

Did the file coversion from NTFS to FAT32 then vise versa and the streams are gone. I did get an error though before converting saying some file had special characteristics and if I didn't put yes, everything would get cancelled, so I put yes and still waiting for an error from that file . Thanks for all the help.

dja2k

p.s.
My system boots faster now and seems a bit faster in windows too.

 

Glad it worked for you.

Hopefully you won't get any errors down the track.

Those image backups certainly make life a bit less stressful,eh.

 

Sure do, wouldn't live without those windows images. You never know when you have to go back. And about the error, well so far haven't noticed a thing, still running fine.

dja2k