? Microsoft Virus Scanning Recommendations???

[buttoni]

I came across this article in my Microsoft folder recently. I always keep a hard copy of useful KB articles and documents regarding tweaks I've done in that folder.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158

I have NEVER done these exclusions before (don't know why, since I had this information), in Avast or any other AV, for that matter.  But it sounds like the exclusions should be done, however.

Have any of you folks got your Avast set up to exclude these files? I did a SEARCH of my HDD and all said files were on my WinXP Home machine right where the article said they'd be. I decided what the heck, created a restore point, made the exclusions in Avast and then did a "thorough" scan.  No problems or error messages in my Avast logs. No system instability that I can see. Any feedback is welcome on this topic.

[DavidR]

Personally I think MS should stick to what they know best and let AVs take care of their side of the deal. avast does exclude some areas but that is I believe hard coded into the program settings.

Well this statement "These files are not at risk of infection" is a big blank cheque.

I have never suffered any of the supposed performance problems even on my older system.

If you scan these files, serious performance problems may occur because of file locking.

I would like to hope that MS would avoid having hundreds of millions of users apply these exclusions by passing this information directly to those AV companies that support the various versions of windows. That is the smart way, but there are times when MS aren't very smart.

You haven't previously had any problems with performance or of instability, and that really is the test. Applying exclusions wouldn't cause any issues at the files MS say might cause performance or file locking issues as those files aren't being scanned.

[buttoni]

Well this statement "These files are not at risk of infection" is a big blank cheque.

I have never suffered any of the supposed performance problems even on my older system.

You haven't previously had any problems with performance or of instability, and that really is the test. Applying exclusions wouldn't cause any issues at the files MS say might cause performance or file locking issues as those files aren't being scanned.

That was kinda my reaction too, DavidR.  Pretty much the same remarks over on BBR-DSL, too. 

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21932052-Microsoft-Virus-Scanning-Exclusion-Recommendations

Since I don't like giving a "blank check" to any potential malware, I think I'll not set these exclusions in Avast after all.  As always, thanks for your input and rationale.  Much appreciated.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

I tend not to fix things that aren't broken, if I were having problems in those specific areas then it would be worth investigating, otherwise its the leave well alone option for me.