Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Windows Messes Up Anti Virus

Today I did an anti virus scan. Just like I do every week. The difference is that part way through the scan I got a message saying I had a bunch of virus or objects & needed to use the rescue CD. This made me nervous. Plus I couldn't figure out where I got this stuff.

So I looked up how to install the rescue CD from Avira's website. First problem: it suggests you download the file from a different pc. I only have one. So I went in the forums. Here I discovered that a lot of people were getting this same message. All had at least 64 objects, & some after doing a second scan now had 90! I had 70.

Apparently Avira has a bug related to Windows Update. Nice. So according to one poster it is related to one of Microsoft's hotfixes. Meaning that Avira detects this security fix as a hidden object. This is a problem, especially since Microsoft does these updates once a week. It would appear that Avira needs to fix their software so that it doesn't conflict with Windows. And yes, I have scanned with MalwareBytes, like everyone else who got these warnings, & nothing came up. And in fact, when the original Avira scan finished, despite listing 70 hidden objects it said I had no viruses. It's saying two things at once. Anti virus software shouldn't do that. I've used Avira for years & this is the first oops I've come across.

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