Vista Boot Time Scan

[strangequark]

Just did a boot time scan with Vista and has taken a ridiculous amount of time, is this normal and if it's not what's the answer to it
Thanks

[igor]

Well, you didn't supply much information - but generally, the boot-time scanner should be equivalent to an ordinary scan with similar settings (and there's nothing special about Vista here).
So - how long did it take? Did you have archive scanning enabled or not? How much data do you have on your disks? How long does a similar scan from Windows GUI (e.g. using Simple User Interface) take?

[strangequark]

yep had archive scanning turned on, it took a couple of hours where the same box with xp used to take maybe 30 minutes, most of the time was spent scanning the partition the system is in,  have all my files and programs on separate partitions which took about the same time as they used to. A scan of the whole system through the Windows GUI takes about the same time as it did on XP.

[igor]

Hmm, maybe some problem with those strange links, present in Vista 

Do you think you would be able to narrow the problematic area somehow? I mean, was it a Windows folder, or Users, or some other? Any particular paths or filenames you spotted?

[strangequark]

I'd have to run it again to be really sure but I think a lot of it was in the Users and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of was to do with Help files, tons of HTML files and maybe Flash [ not sure on the Flash] but definitely lots of HTML.

[igor]

I think we found the problem.
The piece of code responsible for resolving "links" doesn't always work on Vista - and the scanner gets trapped in Vista circular folder links subsequently.
[Isn't it great that Vista installer takes advantage of the new Vista feature - file/folder links - and creates a structure of circular links on your disk?  ]

The problem will be fixed in the upcoming avast! update; a beta version should be available in a few days.
Thanks for your help!

[strangequark]

I'd say you've definitely found the problem. That sounds exactly like what was happening, I had a feeling it was caught in some kind of loop. Thanks, and looking forward to the next version of Avast.

[essexboy]

I'll be waiting to try it as well.  Not yet done a bootscan with vista

[Marc57]

I'll be waiting to try it as well.  Not yet done a bootscan with vista

Same here, I think I'll wait for the new update as well.

[strangequark]

I'll be waiting to try it as well.  Not yet done a bootscan with vista

I would if I were you, I stopped it the first time I tried when after an hour I realized it was still in the Users folder, but then curiosity got the better of me so went for the full monty, probably 2 - 2.5 hours and almost all of that spent in the system. All my files and programs are on seperate partitions which seemed to take the same amount of time as on xp. From what Igor posted earlier it sound like they have nailed it.

[Vlk]

The pre-release version of the update has now been released.
Please see http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=27439.0

Cheers
Vlk

[strangequark]

thanks Vik, will give it a tryout

[strangequark]

just ran a boot time scan with the beta patch, the time problem I had with vista seems to have been fixed.
thanks guys, and nice and quick coming out with the patch, looking forward to the proper release.

p.s. I'll post this on the thread where the beta thread as well.