Guest user - AV icons not activated. Am I protected?

Hi Folks

I have activated my Guest User (log-in as Guest Not as Administrative or Power user) for my own use to minimise risk etc.

All my security softwares are present in the Guest User.

Except ...

I just noticed my Anti-virus (McAfee) was not present in the Guest User account and when I tried to scan it also said that the Definition was not available or something. So I couldn't scan for anything at all.

However, when I log-in as Admin User everything was fine and the AV was running as normally. No problem whatsoever.

So my questions:

1) Is my AV running at all?

2) Is my AV also covering for Guest User even if the icon is not in the System Tray?

3) If not how do I activate my AV in Guest User.

Please advice.

Cheers

Chew

 

Since you have problems when changing profiles, and all the functions of your AV are not available in different accounts, this may be related to fast user switching in Windows XP.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=24734&goto=nextnewest
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=47243&highlight=fast user switching
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=33288

The Home editions of McAfee are still not compatible with FUS on SOME systems. The Enterprise versions are okay though.

Check in your Guest account, in Task Manager, whether the McAfee processes are running in the background( Mcshield.exe for example) even though the system tray icon is not visible.

Even without the McAfee icon, your system files should still be monitored by this AV in the Guest profile. If malware is then detected, these malicious files are not allowed to run you BUT you will not see any visual confirmation of any attack until you switch to the Admin profile.

I presume you could confirm the above using the Eicar test files.

NOD is the only 'Home' AV I know which fully supports FUS. Although the new version of Dr Web is also supposed to be fully functional under all accounts.

 

Blackcat

Thanks for the info.

I've just tried the Fast User Switching mode to my Guest User and noticed the AV was not there in there at all.

I checked the Task Manager and it looked rather bare ...

But did I notice PREVX & all Javacool's icons were present. Except McAfee AV.

The followings were in my Task Manager of my Guest User just now ...

TASKMGR.EXE
SAGUI. EXE
ctfmon.exe
msmsgs.exe
dadtray.exe
Fast.exe
Dadapp.exe
explorer.exe
WZQKPICK.EXE
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
Taskswitch.exe

Not a lot really.

So I guess I better stick to Admin User for the moment ... until I can find a way to protect the Guest user.

Cheers

Chew

 

I presume that McAfee was installed initially into your Admin account.

If you are sure that McAfee is definitely not monitoring your system under the Guest Account, you could install the program into this profile as well. Not ideal I know.

Start>settings>Control Panel>User Accounts, select 'Change the way in which users log on or off', then deselect 'Use Fast User Switching'. Now you can install McAfee in all profiles.

FUS works perfectly in the Enterprise Edition so McAfee know how to make their engine compatible with this task.

I know personally that other AV's, such as KAV and F-Prot for Windows, although not fully compatible with FUS, do protect ALL User Accounts, even though the AV icon is only seen in one profile. The Home version of McAfee AV by your experience does not seem to be able to do even this.

Incidentally, what version of McAfee are you running?

It may be worth while looking over on the McAfee forums http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/ for a possible solution.

 

Thanks Blackcat

As for FUS I am just trying to be a bit more secure that's all. It is to prevent "accidental" installation of unwanted stuff really ... say if I am not log in as Admin, then I cannot install anything on it. So that's more secure in a way. i.e. Super User kind of thing.

I never let anyone touch my computer btw.

My McAfee is using 4.5 engine but with all the latest definition. The very latest.

I think McAfee is rather good to be frank. Perhaps not the top but good enough for me.

So there you go.

Cheers

Chew