Scanning possibly causing Automatic Update to corrupt in XP?

Hi Everyone,

Been having a few problems with Automatic Updates on XP and ran across Microsoft KB article 822158 at URL: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822158#ENACAAA .

This states that certain files and folders need to be excluded from Antivirus scanners due to file locking issues that can cause serious problems with AU.

I notice that these settings are not in the Blackspear settings and wonder if anyone has any ideea if they should be.

I would appreciate Blackspears knowlege on this.

cheers,
Paul
NOD32 reseller UK

 

Hmm.. I don't think you need to exclude anything since it can't scan them in the first place, they are all locked.
I'm not sure if they can be scanned in safe mode however.

 

Strange... no locked files here in C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\
Using NOD32 2.51.26







On another machine (with NOD32 2.7012 RC) i see the same 4 files locked.
Both machines running XP Home SP2 and Automatic Update.

Never had any troubles with AU.

 

I guess it depends if the AU subsystem is working at that point in time. My wory is that the AU subsystem does some fairly strange things w.r.t. file access and I guess M$ are saying that the AV products can inadvertantly lock the files while a real-time scan is taking place.

AU tries to open file >>> NOD checks the File >>> AU Tries again and sees the file is locked by NOD >>> AU goes tits-up and corrupts the AU database >>> AU never works properly again.

With the Blackspear settings remember that all files are scanned interactively as they are opened / read.

..... or am I talking out of another orifice.

Cheers,
Paul

 

English isn't my best language, so i'm not sure what they're trying to tell on that MS page.

"Do not scan the following files and folders. These files are not at risk of infection. If you scan these files, serious performance problems may occur because of file locking."

AV performance or MS performance ?

 

Hi, Paul.

To answer the original question, go to AMON --> Setup --> Exclusions to exclude the files/folders mentioned in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article. I have not run into any problems myself without the exclusions, but if I wanted to follow Microsoft's instructions, that is what I would do.