How long does your Spybot scan take?

My Spybot scans recently seem to have been taking a lot longer than before. Yesterday I ran one that took 1 hour and 23 minutes and found 41 items. Today's took 1 hour and 22 minutes and found 18. My 80 GB HDD is only about half full, if that's significant.

I ordinarily do a Spybot scan only every week or two, but recent ZA, RegSeeker and HJT issues have made me suspicious. How long do your Spybot scans take?

 

My runs take about 15-20 minutes. I run it on a XP system with a 40GB drive and 25GB used. Also on a 98 system with a 80GB drive with about 8GB used. I usually only find 1-3 items to deal with. Your times seem really long compared to what I get.

Mike

 

I've rarely had any Spybot scan take more that 20-30 minutes. You can also try minimizing spybot, this will reduce the time. The following is from the old spybot forums which were at Net-Integration, and I don't know if this tip is posted in the present forums or not:

 

Thanks, everybody, for replying. More are welcome to join in.

TeMerc: I'll try minimizing Spybot, but later. I don't want to start something right now that's likely to take so long.

PeteC: I should have let my signature be displayed so you could see what I'm using for protection. For a long time I've had NAV, Ad-Aware, ZA and Spybot, and I recently added AVG. That should be enough, shouldn't it? Are the things those programs catch doing any harm before they're deleted, or are they quarantined and rendered harmless? I thought the latter.

Just to add to my latest adventures, a few minutes ago I tried to edit some images with Photoshop Album. An error message said to reload the program. I also have Photoshop Elements, and it gave me a similar alert. Checking Control Panel's A/R showed that Elements had somehow been zapped. Not even listed. I reinstalled both programs and they're both functioning OK now.

OTOH, a trojan attack can do some good. Since my HJT episode a few days ago, CP now opens with large icons showing rather than in list format, which I've always wanted and could never get the setting to stick. Also the sequential arrangement of icons in the QuickStart area is now the way I want and I no longer have to drag them to be how I want. Can't say the good makes up for all the bad, but it was an unexpected pleasant surprise.

 

NAV & AVG is not recommended to run together, nor is any two anti-virus apps. Conflicts may abound, leaving you more exposed.

If you're looking for an additional back up style scanner, use the online ones at Panda and Trend Micro

 

I knew that running 2 firewalls wasn't right but I didn't realize that running 2 AV programs was a no-no. So I shut off AVG.

Thinking that having only 1 AV program running was better and that doing a Spybot scan minimized would make a difference, I shut down everything except NAV and ZA and my Linksys router and started a Spybot scan minimized. After 20 minutes I took a peek and the scan was only 25% done. Have I overlooked something?

 

Can't say I have any ideas why the scan would take so long.

Wish I could say that I have heard of this occasionally, but it does not come to mind right off.

 

Bobbo, try turning off your NAV while you do the Spybot S&D scan. Don't know if it will make a difference but worth a try. Just remember to turn it back on!!

I found that Spybot sometimes hung with my eTrust AV running during the scan so now run it with eTrust in the "snooze" setting.

 

JohnB: Interesting idea. So I decided to go whole hog. I shut off my browser, NAV and ZA, and turned off my modem and router (for my wife's laptop). Everything off except Task Manager, which I keep up in case I need it to get past a hang. Started Spybot, minimized it, and waited 20 minutes. Took a peek, and it had barely gotten 25% through the scan, same as the last time. Aggravating.

Discovered another "benefit" of those recent trojan attacks. The Status Bar remains open, like I want, when I open and close the Recycle Bin. I'd never before been able to get that setting to stick.

 

In general it takes about 10 minutes to perform a "smart scan ". I seldom do anything but since I also have two other spyware engines.

 

James: Welcome to the thread.

Not exactly sure what you mean by that, since Smart Scan is an Ad-Aware process rather than a Spybot scan.

In any case, I ran an Ad-Aware Smart System Scan, which took 7 minutes. For at least half that time it was stuck at Objects Scanned:63760, which is in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\.. area of the Registry. It found 7 New Critical Objects, identified as Tracking...IECache...DataMiner. Deleted them, then ran another scan, which didn't find anything but again got stuck in the same area, only at the 63584 point, and a few minutes ago I ran another and it went the same, but sticking at 63991 for the same long time. I noticed it was at something like Microsoft\Windows\Current version\Shared Dlls.

Anything amiss in there? Are these Ad-Aware stalls and the recent Spybot freezes in any way connected?

 

Whoops. lol You're right, Bobbo. I meant that it generally takes about ten minutes to run a scan with Spybot. No smart scan involved here except with Ad-aware and that's another ballgame.

 

Hi BOBBO,

What is the Scan priority set at under Settings? Have you tried higher than Normal?

Regards - Charles

 

Charles: Thanks for joining in. The setting was at Normal, so I changed it to Higher. Started a scan and after 10 minutes it was at 3770/48038, well below 10%, so I stopped the scan.

Between this pattern and the Ad-Aware stall during its scan that I reported last night, I'm suspecting something wrong outside Spybot and A-A. That delay at the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\.. area of the Registry seems like a possibility but I don't know how to tell for sure or how to fix it. Sound promising? Is there a way to scan just that one section of the Registry?

 

Hi BOBBO,

I don't see any way to limit scanning the registry.

Have you looked in SpyBot's logging files:

Checks(yymmddmm).txt

Fixes(yymmddhhmm).txt

Docs & Settings > All Users\Application Data\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Logs\

You'll see the Log file settings under Settings.

If you have the older ones - maybe you can see a point at which this started, if you know about the date when you started having problems.

Same wirh Ad-Aware, its logs hang around unless you delete them.

\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware SE Personal\Logs\

Regards - Charles

 

Charles:

I first became aware of having problems about a week ago when I got hit by a virus and at least one trojan when I foolishly accepted an offer to download a special codec to view a video. Doing NAV, Ad-Aware and Spybot scans were next, followed by a TrendMicro Housecall scan and finally a HJT job. I thought I was in the clear until I downloaded the new RegSeeker version, 1.50, and ran a scan that froze immediately when it shifted from the Scanning stage to the Analyzing stage. I opened a thread on that but it hasn't resulted in a fix on that problem, either, nor have getting versions 1.51 and 1.52.

The logs in Spybot and Ad-Aware will probably list everything they've ever found, and I wouldn't know how to recognize anything that's especially likely to be the cause of this mess. Will deleting them help?

 

Hi BOBBO,
No.

You know about when this started, so that narrrows down looking at logs.

I think you've tried a repair install, although I'm not sure.

Unless you have a drive Image from before this, I would at this point re install the OS.

Forgive me, but this should be a real incentive to look into Drive Imaging. We've had a number of threads on imaging lately. Currently Acronis is giving away v7.0 which is an earlier version and which I don't think supports writing to CD/DVD. What you should use is an external HD for the image anyway, using a HD cuts down on the probability of problems. And having an OS only partition and one for user data also simplifies imaging, but not essential for emergencies.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=58471&highlight=imaging
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=58567&highlight=imaging
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=58330&highlight=imaging

Regards - Charles

 

Charles:

If you mean a repair install of Spybot and/or Ad-Aware -- no, I haven't. It would be easy enough. If that's what you mean, should the reinstall be on top of the existing one(s), or should I delete it/them and do a fresh install? I'm willing, but I didn't think the problem was caused by them but with something else that interfered with their functioning as they're supposed to (i.e., slowing down their scans). Disagree? Earlier, I thought I was having a problem with the latest version of ZoneAlarm, too, and I wound up going back to v6.1.744.001. Doesn't seem to have helped.

* Ack! * Gasp! * Before I jump into water that deep, I'll wait for a reply to the above paragraph. But until then, I have the WinXP disk. Would an OS install be over the top of the existing OS install or does it involve removing the old one?

 

Hi BOBBO,

I meant a repair of the OS - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If you do re install - removing the current installation is the best way - by formating.

BTW, if you do persue re installation, the XP cd can be used to not only format, but also to partition the HD.

Regards - Charles