Anti Virus problems

Cl@re · Jul 9, 2006

Firstly, I'm running two anti virus software. AVG & McAfee. Both full uptodate. On a windows XP pc.

Recently McAfee has been playing up. The virus scan disables itself from time to time. I got in touch with their technical help and all they suggested was my date and time may not be set correctly (it's 100% fine) or that I may have a virus. Up until THEN at least I didn't. I run both anti virus, both gave me clear results and my pc wasn't acting at all strange.

Last night I fell asleep and my pc had been left on.

when i woke up, McAfee had disabled itself again and AVG reported that a virus had been detected. I'm new to AVG so do not know their methods. Aside from some grizzly looking troll at the top where it said the virus had been detected, the rest of the box was empty. (maybe it shouldn't have been?)

what i want to know is .. does AVG work like McAfee .. upon detection of a known virus - does it remove it? or does it wait for your instruction? I had no instruction of what to do with the virus.

I'm currently running an AVG virus scan (I had to shut my pc down before running it). I will also run a McAfee scan .. are there any other free virus scans I can run, to triple check?

Oh and lastyly .. what is a shell32.dll? I seem to have a lot of things involving "shell" in my system registry. (I'm not even sure what a system registry is lol) I could be just paranoid about what's on my pc now as I'm not very pc savvy.

any help or advice would be appreciated.

MellowMan · Jul 9, 2006

first of all don't run two antivirus programs at once, it gives your computer a headache, seriously, it causes all kinds of problems.

hawklord · Jul 10, 2006

you need to uninstall one of your anti-virus or you will end up with lots of problems also try an on-line scanner like trendmicro, its free and does not interfere with an installed anti-virus,
i have avg and not had a problem with it

Mada_Milty · Jul 10, 2006

I recommend that you follow the instructions in the how to protect yourself from malware thread. This will show you how to set up an excellent, redundant, and best fo all, FREE defense against spyware and viruses.

DavidGP · Jul 10, 2006

Do please as mentioned above uninstall one of your virus scanners as they will conflict in resident/live scanning mode, which actually maybe why your having some issues at present, as AVG noted a virus... did it mention a name of this virus and the file name it was located in?

shell32.dll, you really do not want to mess with unless you like re-installing your OS? It's the UI ( user Interface ) of the OS and controls amongst other things the opening of webpages and files, visual styles etc

Info as to what the registry is.... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/ in essence its like a very large directory, in which it keeps track of files and loactions and what controls what application.

It is however not a place to go deleting files unless you know what you are doing as it can render at best a few applicatiosn none working and at worst your whole Operating System to cease working.

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Anti Virus problems

Cl@re Private E-2

MellowMan First Sergeant

hawklord Master Sergeant

Mada_Milty MajorGeek

DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member