actually that's not unreasonable if you've got a lot of stuff, haven't defragged for a while, had a few viruses maybe (they still leave damage behind) and also if you've got it set to scan all files it will take a while.

any particular reason why you're scanning in the first place?

why do you keep having girl sigs, anyway? I'm getting worried about you..

..fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant..

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/3/2004 12:43:32 PM

Aod, set it to run when you go to bed, that way when you get up, its done and won't get in the way. Mine is every thursday night at 1:00am

Carefull when you set it though. I've been kicked off several servers for FL and other games because Norton started scanning in the middle of the game and shot my ping through the roof. I really need to change it from friday at 9. Although, it only scans when the PC is on, right? --- VH16

I am Nobody; Nobody is Perfect; Therefore, I am Perfect

I agree with Taw. You probably have a bunch of superfluous processes running in the background, a severly fragmented HDD, as well as various viruses, worms, trojans, and spyware .

I don't think 3 hours is bad at all. My current machine takes about an hour - but my last machine would take anything up to 5 hours to run a full scan.

Mine's set to run at 10am on a Friday...as I'm pretty much guaranteed to be at work, and I know it will be done and in good condition for the weekend.

You can restart in safemode and then run it. Its a bit faster then. Also, you can set some file exclusions. My freelancer files and music are ones that I exclude so that it is faster. I have 11gb worth of files to scan and it takes about 30 minuets.

Another great Finalday tip

My computer took 1 hour to scan the 10 Gigs on it then I got rid of Norton once I disconnected from the internet on that machine. It runs and boots up so much quicker without Norton (Another Tip! ). On the computer I'm on right now, I have a programme called eTrust that just moniter outgoing and incoming files to stop virus's from coming in, it's great because you don't need to scan since virus's never even get on your computer to harm you.

" it's great because you don't need to scan since virus's never even get on your computer to harm you."

I wouldn't rely too heavily on that, if I were you.

AV s'ware is your last line of defence, and with XP (or indeed any MS-Windows o/s) on an interweb conn, I consider it eessential. i won't put a PC on the interweb without at the very least AV s'ware, even if there is a cost in performance (anyway you can tweak that, or stick some more RAM in)

I have a hardware firewall in my router, which is poa for the cable modem, and each critical machine (mine and server) have s'ware firewalls and AV, while the secondary machines (kids) have AV s'ware alone (because I control their interweb access anyway)

..and I'm still paranoid about security, even though i haven't had a virus since 96/97 i think

my machine takes 22 minutes with a.v.g. which i think is good it lags my computer a bit but thats no problem
edit- right now i have 9/80 gigs to scan, yes an 80 gig HDD and i have 9 gigs worth of files

Edited by - arton alpha on 6/4/2004 9:54:48 AM

Ooooh goody. I get to ask some firewall questions:

1) Is it of any use to install more than one s'ware firewall? I've been curious about this as I know people who insist that one is not enough. i.e, use both Symantec's and Network Associates' firewalls.

I tend to think that if you have your s'ware firewall setup, it's setup. Add another s'ware firewall and what are you going to do with it? You're still going to have set it up to allow or disallow the same things as you did with the first one so that the same vulnerabilities in the first firewall will be repeated in the second. I am assuming that the s'ware firewalls being used are current reliable industry standard makes (mine is McAfee).

2) <a-> How do hardware firewalls "work" so to speak and <b-> why are they effective?

using 2 firewalls is just stupid. i mean you're going to have the same rules for each aren't you, allow the same progs to access the interweb, so what the hell's the point. I know people who swear by this silly habit, they are q q wrong.

now hardware & software f''wall combo, that's a different kettle of fish. In fact there is no sware v hware argument, they complement each other. I'll keep this simple.

you're familiar with sware fwalls. a piece of sware you add onto your os and apps to control net access, generally fairly easy to configure and use, but subject to going tits-up occasionally, can be gotten around, and can be demanding on sys resources.

hware fwall is part of a networking hware package such as a decent router. basically denies all in/out access at hardware level unless specifically allowed by the configuration (which you control) can be very powerful, in fact too powerful and can also be a bugger for novices to set up.

so it works out like this

sware fwall - easy to set up and use but can be unreliable, demanding and irksome
hware fwall - hard to set up and use but much more secure and once set you can leave it alone

mix the two. Aren't you going for that wireless LAN now, or did Mrs Ed kybosh it in the end?

here's an interesting article in TechRepublic that discusses this very issue.

Also at AntiOnline

..fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant..


Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/4/2004 11:17:42 AM

Thenk you veddy much Taw.

Atchly, not setup a network at all....yet. Am spending loose change on, er, baby things all of a sudden.....again.

I've retreated on that front and decided to just spoil myself rotten with a new masheen with all the bells and whistles I am able to 1) afford 2) install myself.

But I now do see the advantages in security with wire-lan. It's a pipe dream now. Maybe when we finally buy a house out in the 'burbs.

Edited by - Indy11 on 6/4/2004 4:46:16 PM

I have heard of people that have two firewalls, but it just seems stupid to me. I mean, if a firewall allows something through as legitimate traffic, why would the second block it? If the second firewall had more stringent security, it would defeat the purpose of having the first firewall. *Shakes head* Some people have some crazy ideas. I'm almost as paranoid about security as Taw is, but it never occurred to me to have two firewalls!

i still dont know why you guys (Taw, Esq) belive my PC
to be riddle with viruses and fragmented HDD's

this is the report for my HDD from disk Defragmenter:
Total files: 114 499
Total Fragments: 371

and as for viruses, i have NEVER had a virus, EVER