Avast WEBforum

Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: OsamaS on February 28, 2007, 04:53:13 PM

Title: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: OsamaS on February 28, 2007, 04:53:13 PM
Hi,
the resident checker seems to process exclusions fine if the directory names are simple.
I wanted to exclude my Thunderbird mail directory files from being scanned (they don't have extensions, so I exclude the whole directory) but it doesn't have any effect at all. They still get scanned on any action I take in my mailbox which slows it down.

I put this in the exclusion of the
C:\Documents and Settings\osama.DARKMATTER\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\2z6h9h9j.default\Mail\mail.gmx-1.net\*.*
I tried excluding it with 8.3 notation but didn't work either
C:\Docume~1\osama~1.dar\applic~1\thunde~1\profiles\2z6h9h9j.default\mail\mailgm~1.net\*.*

Funny thing is it works fine for directories like Dir1.test or whatever.

If I can't find a solution to this soon then I'm moving to AVG!
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: igor on February 28, 2007, 05:17:11 PM
Open the resident protection window (leftclick the avast! tray icon) and in the expanded view, select Standard Shield and watch the "Last scanned" item when working with Thunderbird; what form of the path does that show?
(you can move your mouse over the item to see the complete tooltip)
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: OsamaS on February 28, 2007, 05:30:55 PM
Open the resident protection window (leftclick the avast! tray icon) and in the expanded view, select Standard Shield and watch the "Last scanned" item when working with Thunderbird; what form of the path does that show?
(you can move your mouse over the item to see the complete tooltip)


It says:
C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\OSAMA.DARKMATTER\APPLICATION DATA\THUNDERBIRD\PROFILES\2Z6H9H9J.DEFAULT\MAIL\MAIL.GMX-1.NET\Inbox

"Inbox" is the thunderbird inbox mail file that contains all the mails.

My exclusion says:
C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\OSAMA.DARKMATTER\APPLICATION DATA\THUNDERBIRD\PROFILES\2Z6H9H9J.DEFAULT\MAIL\MAIL.GMX-1.NET\*.*

Don't know how to embed images in the forum so I could have posted a screen shot.

rgds
Osama
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: OsamaS on February 28, 2007, 05:33:39 PM
Open the resident protection window (leftclick the avast! tray icon) and in the expanded view, select Standard Shield and watch the "Last scanned" item when working with Thunderbird; what form of the path does that show?
(you can move your mouse over the item to see the complete tooltip)


btw I had the same issue on a laptop and on a friends PC, and there we "resolved" it by installing AVG.
But I've had AVAST  running happily on my PC for so long, so I'm reluctant to give up on it.
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: igor on February 28, 2007, 05:47:39 PM
The mask you used doesn't match the filename.
Use only * (instead of *.*) at the end.
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: Vlk on February 28, 2007, 05:47:53 PM
You (almost) answered your own question. :)

The problem is, avast doesn't adhere to the DOS acronym *.*
If you think about it, *.* isn't really what it says -- in DOS, *.* matches even extensionless files (even though the "dot" is not really there).
Avast doesn't do this; the mask *.* won't match extensionless files. Use simple * instead, that should do the trick.


Cheers
Vlk
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: Vlk on February 28, 2007, 05:48:24 PM
Oops, 14 seconds late... :P
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: DavidR on February 28, 2007, 06:52:04 PM
You could cut the length of the path using the wildcard * e.g. C:\*\THUNDERBIRD\PROFILES\2Z6H9H9J.DEFAULT\MAIL\MAIL.GMX-1.NET\* or C:\*\THUNDERBIRD\PROFILES\*\MAIL.GMX-1.NET\* or C:\*\OSAMA.DARKMATTER\*\MAIL\MAIL.GMX-1.NET\* or any like combination so it isn't too general an exclusion.
Title: Re: Resident Scan Exclusion not working with complex directories?
Post by: Vlk on February 28, 2007, 06:56:12 PM
<paranoid mode>

As a matter of fact, I'd generally recommend against using masks like

C:\*\<something>

because they can, especially if there are more of them, slow things down. Matching this wildcard is not easy (if you think about it) and uses quite some (unnecessary) CPU cycles.

</paranoid mode>

Cheers
Vlk