SB Auto-Update and new McAfee Security Center

Javacools may not be aware of this but since McAfee introduced their new 2007 Security products there is a startup issue with them and SB Auto-Update. Sbautoupdate.exe hangs and seems to conflict with mcsysmon.exe and HWAPI.exe (and to a certain extent svchost.exe) for between 2 and 5 minutes, causing from 50-100% CPU usage.
The solution according to McAfee (I "work" for them as a Forum Mod) is to turn off the SB auto-update. Either that or "end process" on mcsysmon.exe in Task Manager, which isn't wise.
I was hoping that they would solve the problem but they haven't so far and according to one of their senior engineers, they aren't in any hurry to do so.
This only applies, as far as I know, to XP. It may apply also to Windows 2000 users but not sure. (McAfee's 2007 products are only available for those 2 systems).
Anyone here or at Javacools with any brainwaves?

 

Hello Ex_Brit,
As noted in this recent thread concerning this matter...."there is nothing on Spywareblasters end that will cause this conflict to go away....You will have to either continue ending the "mcsysmon.exe" task or find out which McAfee protection is monitoring the pertinent Internet Explorer registry keys that Spywareblaster and even Spybot Immunization is attempting to add....The solution has to come from McAfee and it's program."

Bubba

 

Thanks Bubba, I obviously didn't search hard enough for the issue. I'm pushing them (McAfee) on the issue as hard as I can.

 

Similar to this Spywareblaster Forum sticky concerning Spysweeper....is there not a McAfee protection item that can temporarily disabled while Spywareblaster protection needs to be added ?

This is similar to using a registry monitor program like RegDefend that monitors the same Interent Explorer\Domains key....a user themselves would need to temporarily disable that RegDefend rule so the Spywareblaster\Spybot\IE-Spyad\....etc protection could be added. I feel McAfee users themselves would have to do likewise and there really isn't probably much McAfee themselves can do. IMHO....this is an example where layers can interact but is also requires the user to be part of the layer of interaction

Bubba

 

As stated ending process on mcsysmon.exe stops the problem immediately but that could be dangerous. Anyway, I just left another "moangram" in the Viruscan chief engineer's inbox.

 

Update:

It is possible to get around this and not disable auto-update.

See: http://tools.mcafeehelp.com/doc.php?siteid=1&docid=407702&support=ts

 

Re: McAfee VirusScan 11 "mcsysmon.exe" lockups

IMHO....having a Spywareblaster user disable any part of their software is not the solution but only an easy out\quick fix for McAfee and it sure didn't take a rocket scientist to come up with that hair brain suggestion.

Also....as this is clearly not a Spywareblaster support issue but a McAfee problem....I have taken the liberty to move this thread to this more appropriate forum.

Bubba