How to exclude a single file?

[REDACTED]

I have a folder called Software on my D: Partition, inside it, I have a benchmarking/stability test program called wPRIME. By default, the performance I get is lowered if Avast is active, I tried excluding the entire software folder and the wPRIME benchmark went back to being where it was.

Now how can I exclude a single file only rather than the entire folder? I only see an option to exclude the whole path but not an individual file in the settings.

[Eddy]

https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB168

[DavidR]

When you have excluded the folder as you have found, it ends with \* (* being a multi-character wild card). You can go into the exclusions again and edit the entry you have created  and replace the * with the filename.file-type (e.g. example.exe).

You can also use windows explorer and copy the path.

By far the best thing to do is to report it to the virus labs for analysis as a possible false positive.

If the file was in the virus chest you can do both actions to Restore the file and add it to the exclusions. You can also send it to the virus labs for analysis.

[REDACTED]

thanks, wPRIME is not a false positive but if I do not exclude it, the performance of the benchmark is lowered big time. Seems like avast! is constantly scanning it

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

[REDACTED]

Hi Mr. David,

I added the following path:

D:\Software\wPrime.exe

Before excluding that file, wPRIME 32M benchmark score was 4.95 seconds

After excluding it, the new score is 4.6 seconds (the lower the better)

Thanks a lot

[DavidR]

I can understand why the need for exclusion as avast would be monitoring it and its activity slowing the benchmarking.

[REDACTED]

Well at least the exclusions actually work. With NOD32 v9 and v8 even before, even if you add an exclusion, it's like it wasn't really excluded and whatever problem I may have been having would not be resolved unless I uninstalled NOD32 completely, hence why I switched to avast! even though I have a 5 year license for 7 computers......now collecting dust

[DavidR]

That is definitely a failing not allowing you to add an exclusion.

I can see them not making it easy as some would/could exclude malicious files by accident or design, if they want it to run but the AV doesn't.

[REDACTED]

just go give you an example, I once had an issue with Outlook 2013 not synchronizing my mail folders of my Gmail account properly....... I couldn't for the life of me figure it out, then I disabled HTTP Scanning in NOD32, it WAS disabled but that didn't solve the Outlook issue....or any performance issues I had like slow file transfers to my external USB drive.....the moment I uninstalled NOD32 everything worked perfectly....

I saw similar performance issues on their forums as well and disabling any of the components of NOD32 didn't help until one completely uninstalled it so it is not actually full deactivating whatever you have deactivated.

Sorry for going a bit offtopic here but just wanted to praise Avast for a properly working exclusions system.

[DavidR]

No problem, you have a little latitude in your own topic