Avast scanning slower than molasses??

[dana0069]

HI all, i'm new to Avast anti-virus and also new to this forum.
I've had norton anti-virus, and just un-installed 'avgfree' to try this , but i got to tell ya. its been scanning for over 30 min now. is this normal??? norton took 15 min. avgfree took 10 min. the program seems to working great, except for the slowness. is there a way to speed this up? i can litteraly watch each file as its being scanned...the other anti-virus programs whip by so fast..its a blur. is this the downside of avast?
thanks for your help.dana0069
win98se, pentium 4, 2.6gh. 80 gig hard drive. (my specs)

[RejZoR]

Thorough mode with Archives enabled? New os (like Windows XP would also help very much). How much RAM do you have?

[dana0069]

512mb  ddr 3200, 800fsb hyperthreading. its not a slow system. yes scanning set for through, but so was norton..and avgfree, neither of these took anywhere near that long?

[RejZoR]

Use Standard mode without Archives. This is thorough enough for anyday use.
Thorough mode (with Archives) is really only recommended on serious infections when you have to clean everything. Also if there is a chance,switch to Windows XP or 2000.
Performance will skyrocket,trust me. Win9x architecture is outdated (7 years is a long period) that cannot take full advantage of your high performace hardware.

[lukor]

Yes I would also say this is a disadvantage of avast supporting so many archive formats....

Anyway, dana0069, hyperthreading is a nice feature, I like it very much.
It might be another reason for you to upgrade your OS, since Win98se does NOT support Hyperthreading at all.

[igor]

I'd rather say - don't use the "Thorough" mode, since it scans the whole files, which is not really necessary. I suggest to use Standard scan, with archives, if you wish.

Btw, I think the scanning on your system (especially in "Thorough" mode) is limited by the speed of your hard drive.