Avast 4 Home edition: "unable to scan" help

[DrJeepney]

I have windows xp home edition, and i have avast 4 home edition.

i did a virus scan on my computer and at the end of the scan there was a lot of files thats said "unable to scan" next to them.  is there any reasons why it is unable to scan?

is that normal? if not, how do i resolve that issue?

thnx.

[bob3160]

DrJeepney
It's very normal to have files that can't be scanned.
Any file currently in use by the operating system for instance can't be accessed. There could also be compressed files which are password protected that would not be accessible.
To get the most thorough scan, do a boot-time scan.  

[MustangLady]

I have the same problem.  What is a boot scan and how do I do it?  

[MikeBCda]

Hi,

A boot-time scan has avast check your drive(s) during the boot-up process, essentially before Windows has loaded, so you don't run into that "file is in use" problem.

If you open the "main" menu (i.e., with the inferface open, not that tooltray-icon menu), you'll see one of the choices is Schedule Boot-Time Scan.  Select that, then the kind of scan you want, and it'll then tell you you'll need to reboot and do you want to do that now.  Answer yes, and avast will do the scan, then reboot one more time normally.

[igor]

Was there any additional reason regarding the "unable to scan" files?
If they were password-protected archives, then they will always be unable to scan (i.e. there's no use trying to use the boot-time scan). However, you don't have to worry about such files - they're rather common.