400+ Scanned Files After Login

[Skram0]

Is it normal for Avast to scan over 400 files after you boot and login? When XP is loading after I log in, I click on the "a" icon and view the "Standard Shield" status. The are a lot files going through the "Last scanned:" status line. Even files in the "\Program Files\" directory like games I haven't played in a long time. And they get scanned everytime I reboot the computer. Once I'm fully booted, the resulting "Scanned count:" is ~416. I do have about 7 other programs booting to the system tray.

Do they get scanned because of Avast? Or perhaps some other program in my system needs to check the integrity of all files and Avast just happens to be in the middle and has to scan them?

[Eddy]

Is it normal for Avast to scan over 400 files after you boot and login?

Have you ever thought of how many files Windows itself is using?

Even files in the "\Program Files\" directory like games I haven't played in a long time.

Not playing them doesn't mean they haven't add things to the "load at boottime list".
Have a look with StartUp.cpl at the list.

[Vlk]

~ 400 sounds normal to me (if you are using Windows XP).
Shouldn't slow down your computer much though - or does it in your case?

[Skram0]

Yea, it seems quite a bit slower with any antivirus software installed. I used to use Norton 2003. When ever I disabled it, my boot was very quick. My system would be done with hard drive activity even before USERINIT.EXE was finished and the system was idle.

Now with Avast installed, it seems I'm back to where I was before with Norton. At logon, I'll see one icon appear in the system tray, and lots of hard drive activity, then a few seconds later another appears, etc. Without any antivirus software, my icons will appear about a half a second from each other and the system stops hard drive activity sooner.

My guess is maybe XP is going through its icon cache for the Start menu, although I still see hard drive activity when I actually look at different entries from the Start menu.

Is there a log somewhere, or someway to turn one on, which keeps track of all the files "Last scanned:"?

Would there also be a way to delay the "Scan files on open" until after the system is booted? I understand I wouldn't be protected during this time, but if I'm scanning all file while I'm using the computer, there shouldn't be such a high risk for infection during the boot process.

[MikeBCda]

~ 400 sounds normal to me (if you are using Windows XP).
Shouldn't slow down your computer much though - or does it in your case?

I imagine the files involved either are or are closely related to the "modules" called up by running processes, and are mostly dll's.  When I do an Ad-Aware scan, it starts by counting both the number of running processes and the number of active modules associated with them.  On my XP-Home (with SP2) that's typically 30 processes and around 1200 modules.

[bob3160]

I have 25 little goodies that load into my system tray when the computer boots and avast scans 1445 files.
What holds me back is ZA. it's usually the last thing to load.

[Skram0]

25!? Damn. Hope ya got a fairly modern puter.  

[Gillie2tat]

He has, look at his signature.

[bob3160]

Unfortunately it's an early Pentium4.  Only 1500MHZ :'(

[lee16]

Still higher then mine Bob, 1100MHZ Intel Inside Celeron (256kb L2 cache)

--lee

[bob3160]

lee;
I had a 700Mhz AMD in here till a friend of mine upgraded his system and I inherited his old processor. Now I'm waiting for him to upgrade his 2400Mhz so I can get it.