McAfee seems to cause Outlook Not Responding
I need your experience with McAfee VirusScan 6.0 causing Outlook 2000 to hang.
The problem is this. Intermittently (not with every check) my Outlook 2000 hangs (stops responding) during email download (simple POP3). I have to shutdown and restart Outlook to continue work, and at least one email will never be downloaded, effectively getting lost. (Figured that out by turning on 'leave a copy on server'.)
Also, I found that Outlook stays in memory (visible in Task Manager) after I shut it down.
Finally, there is a weird problem with drag and drop moving of emails to different folders.
I've succeeded in removing the problems by disabling McAfee email scan. But that doesn't really satisfy.
Who is *familiar* with this problem and *knows* the solution? (I can come up with reinstall, virus scan, scandisk, and other obvious attempts myself.)
The problem is this. Intermittently (not with every check) my Outlook 2000 hangs (stops responding) during email download (simple POP3). I have to shutdown and restart Outlook to continue work, and at least one email will never be downloaded, effectively getting lost. (Figured that out by turning on 'leave a copy on server'.)
Also, I found that Outlook stays in memory (visible in Task Manager) after I shut it down.
Finally, there is a weird problem with drag and drop moving of emails to different folders.
I've succeeded in removing the problems by disabling McAfee email scan. But that doesn't really satisfy.
Who is *familiar* with this problem and *knows* the solution? (I can come up with reinstall, virus scan, scandisk, and other obvious attempts myself.)
ASKER
SunBow,
Please take the trouble to read a Q properly before adding comments.
I have determined beyond any doubt that the combination of McAfee VirusScan (HAWK for Outlook) and Outlook 2000 cause the problem I describe, simply because all symptoms disappear when I switch off the HAWK feature.
I have not configured Outlook to stay memory-resident. After I disabled HAWK, Outlook no longer stayed memory-resident. Conclusion - the combination of HAWK and Outlook causes the problem.
VirusScan does not cause any appreciable system drag and I prefer it to scan whatever I happen to be running.
My question is:
> Who is *familiar* with this problem and *knows* the solution?
Ranting about McAfee and making snide remarks about Outlook does not help towards answering that question.
Please take the trouble to read a Q properly before adding comments.
I have determined beyond any doubt that the combination of McAfee VirusScan (HAWK for Outlook) and Outlook 2000 cause the problem I describe, simply because all symptoms disappear when I switch off the HAWK feature.
I have not configured Outlook to stay memory-resident. After I disabled HAWK, Outlook no longer stayed memory-resident. Conclusion - the combination of HAWK and Outlook causes the problem.
VirusScan does not cause any appreciable system drag and I prefer it to scan whatever I happen to be running.
My question is:
> Who is *familiar* with this problem and *knows* the solution?
Ranting about McAfee and making snide remarks about Outlook does not help towards answering that question.
FlorisMK,
I am running McAfee VS 6.0 with Outlook 2002 and have the same problems. I too have disables "Hawk" and have noticed that Outlook doesn't freeze up like it did periodically, but I still see Outlook resident in memory intermittently. In my case, having one or more versions of Outlook not clearing out of memory temporarily disables my Logitech wireless keyboard's hot keys from working. As soon as I kill the Outlook process(es), the situation rectifies itself.
I have contacted McAfee, but they have not offered any viable solution. I have been a firm believer in McAfee for many years, but am now going to make the switch to Norton AV. About a month ago I did some consulting work for a friend whose office had a major Klez virus outbreak. McAfee's initial solution did not properly take care of the virus since it infected the boot sector of many PCs and needed to be cleaned during boot up. I asked McAfee's tech support if they had an easy way to create a bootable CD-ROM to clean the virus off of a NTFS volume - they could not help me so I figured it out myself. They have also been consistanly slower than Norton or some other anti-virus s/w products at releasing updates to combat new viruses. These are some of the reasons why I am moving to another AV product. Just some food for thought...
I am running McAfee VS 6.0 with Outlook 2002 and have the same problems. I too have disables "Hawk" and have noticed that Outlook doesn't freeze up like it did periodically, but I still see Outlook resident in memory intermittently. In my case, having one or more versions of Outlook not clearing out of memory temporarily disables my Logitech wireless keyboard's hot keys from working. As soon as I kill the Outlook process(es), the situation rectifies itself.
I have contacted McAfee, but they have not offered any viable solution. I have been a firm believer in McAfee for many years, but am now going to make the switch to Norton AV. About a month ago I did some consulting work for a friend whose office had a major Klez virus outbreak. McAfee's initial solution did not properly take care of the virus since it infected the boot sector of many PCs and needed to be cleaned during boot up. I asked McAfee's tech support if they had an easy way to create a bootable CD-ROM to clean the virus off of a NTFS volume - they could not help me so I figured it out myself. They have also been consistanly slower than Norton or some other anti-virus s/w products at releasing updates to combat new viruses. These are some of the reasons why I am moving to another AV product. Just some food for thought...
I have a similar issue.
I have McAfee V4.5.1 SP1 with Outlook 2002.
When Outlook is open, I get the sword across the shield (as expected).
I close Outlook.
The sword stays.
I check the Task Manager, Outlook is still open with no activity and a whole LOAD of memory used!
I can "End Process", but that doesn't really solve the problem of Outlook not closing down properly.
Any ideas?
Richard Q.
I have McAfee V4.5.1 SP1 with Outlook 2002.
When Outlook is open, I get the sword across the shield (as expected).
I close Outlook.
The sword stays.
I check the Task Manager, Outlook is still open with no activity and a whole LOAD of memory used!
I can "End Process", but that doesn't really solve the problem of Outlook not closing down properly.
Any ideas?
Richard Q.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
I am afraid I am going to accept your answer, dabolts - knowing that I am not alone in learning to dislike McAfee VirusScan is not quite a solution, but at least it lets me believe there isn't really one. So yeah, I might make the same switch. )-:
fyi,
Recent media pundit just switched from Norton to McAfee. My company runs latest Norton+Outlook.
(I have little preference myself)
Recent media pundit just switched from Norton to McAfee. My company runs latest Norton+Outlook.
(I have little preference myself)
2) No reason to scan downloads. Do NOT do any scanning if not needed, especially real-time or of files not changed or not executable.
3) Scanners need and use an enormous cpu load, not just McAfee.
4) Do not place high value on scandisk or check disk. What they may place out of service, bad sectors, may be critical to OS and they are unaware of that. They leave you with false sense of security, which is worse that a McAfee false positive that quarantines a critical piece. At least there you'd have a clue for how to undo the damage.
> Also, I found that Outlook stays in memory (visible in Task Manager) after I shut it down.
5) irrelevant to A/V. You've likely configured outlook to do so, knowing or not. Maybe to periodically synchronize or scan or find new mail every so often. Whatever, this is not virus related.
6) For EM downloads, McAfee is among worst A/V. Do not use McAfee during a download. Downloads do not infect. It is running programs that causes infections. Wait until you no longer need networking to add in the overhead of running a virus checker. (use firewall for protection when networking, such as ZA, which takes up cpu but provides more real protection anyway. Note distinction, that protectionn is not same as detection. You can keep the McAfee's for the detect part.)
7) Best A/V lies between keyboard and chair... between your ears. If you don't run strange programs, you don't need A/V. As above, it is detector - after the fact, not protector, before the event.