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theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 1 of 10

Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

Hi I was just wondering if this is a normal occurrance?  I believe before I update to Version 11 of my McAfee Internet Security, even if I update the dat version of the antivirus the amount of space taken is the same as yesterday.  However, even in version 11, I checked before performing the update and it said something like 350,510,985,156 btyes used, after updating I would have roughly the same number (Maybe a few kilobytes or megabytes increase).  However, today I performed a full scan and was doing nothing on the system for the entire 1 hour.  After the scan I checked the space and it was 350,630, something after it.  This means that my computer lose about 120 megabytes during the scan.

I am also certain that there was no other programs running its update as I had the task manager on the whole time and the number of processes was the same.  With a event where McAfee 32-bit helper show up for about a second and then disappeared.  Also, not sute but is it normal to have 13 svchost.exe in the task manager?  I noticed that all of their PID were in the 2000s and lower, with the last one having a PID of 3900-something.  The memory usage was also about the same as the other, about 35,000.

In case this information is needed, tihs computer is a XP Home Service Pack 3

9 Replies
theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 2 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

I forgot to mention that I know something the amount of space that gets taken might range from 20 KB to maybe 10 MB, but never 100+ MB.

Dinz
Former Member
Message 3 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

Do you face any performance issues with the computer ? Like opening a web page or any installed application ?

Also, were there any threats detected in the computer ?

What would be the RAM installed and the Hard drive space ?

theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 4 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

As far as I know, I don't think this is affecting the performance of my computer.  As for RAM I have 1 GB, and Hard Drive is a 1TB drive.  Even though, 100 MB doesn't sound a lot compare to 1 TB, if I keep losing about 100+ MB each day.  I will run out of space.

theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 5 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

Okay so, I posted the amount of RAM and the size of my drive.  Now what?

theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 6 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

This problem is still happening and as far as I know, it looks like this is only happening after I updated to Version 11.  I already posted the amount of RAM and my Drive space, but I don't see how that will help me since these are just specs.

yippeekaiyay
Former Member
Message 7 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

I've been having the same issue ever since I updated to Version 11. I tracked my disk space pretty closely prior to the update and it literally wasn't until the update occurred and I rebooted that disk space started disappearing at an alarming rate. Since I received the update on June 17th, I've gone from 234 GB available to 223 GB. Out of that 11 GB, I've only actually had one installation last week that was 757 MB. I believe this is a symptom tied to another issue, the Windows File Protection warnings other XP SP3 users are experiencing ever since Version 11 was installed or upgraded.

Do you mind looking up a few things? I'm looking for any similarities to the symptoms I've been having.

  1. Can you go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer and look under System. See if you find any warnings for Windows File Protection that occur right at shutdown. They may not appear every shutdown, or they may appear multiple times per shutdown. Please post if there are any.
  2. Can you check Task Manager to see if winlogon.exe is using an increased amount of memory usage, as well as CPU usage? Try seeing if it fluctuates significantly by looking in your C:\WINDOWS, C:\WINDOWS\system32, or system32\dllcache folders and looking at the properties on any of the files.
  3. Is System Restore on? If so, how much space do you have allocated for it out of your 1 TB?
  4. Where do you see the disk space being lost? From My Computer with the Local Disk (C:) Total Size 1 TB, Free Space: ___ GB?
  5. Do you notice that when you view your folders and files at the C:\ root directory, select all, and click properties, that the disk space there hasn't changed much at all, but when you right-click on Local Disk (C:) from My Computer and click properties that this is the number decreasing?
  6. Check and see how many files are in your system32\dllcache folder and the size of the folder. I notice that as winlogon.exe is actively using CPU and memory, it's using sfc_os.dll (Windows File Protection) to backup or restore system files to the dllcache folder, which I believe System Restore then backs up without forming a restore point. My folder has 2389 files and about 456 MB. Everyone's dllcache will be different.

I noticed that once Version 11 was removed, the issue went away. Winlogon.exe returned to normal. Disk space was no longer lost for no apparent reason. Once I reinstalled Version 11, I began losing 100-600 MB of space from the Local Disk (C:) view with all the Windows File Protection stuff going on. The more activity that occurred there, the more space was lost. Since System Restore backs files up to a hidden archive, selecting all files and folders within your C:\ root directory doesn't show that disk space being used.

For example, right now winlogon.exe hasn't been doing too much with the sfc_os.dll (Windows File Protection) so there's been only 30 MB of space used and at least 12.5 MB of it was 17 files being backed up to my dllcache folder at least once.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. This is what I've observed, but I'm no expert. Dinz is helping with the investigation into the Windows File Protection issues in case you do have those symptoms. And sorry for the long post!

Message was edited by: yippeekaiyay on 7/15/11 11:23:57 PM CDT
theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 8 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

1. I don't get any warnings during shutdown, also I have not gotten this Windows File Protection warning when I was upgraded to Version 11.

2. I am not on my XP, but I don't think that my winlogon.exe is using more RAM or CPU.  But I do remember that the RAM was about 500 and CPU was 0.

3. Not sure if System Restore is on or not.  I am going to have to assume it is and I didn't mess with System Restore, so maybe it has it default allocation of space.

4. The Drive that is losing the space is the Hard Drive, since I only have one.

5. Nope, never checked like that since it is faster to go to properties of My Computer

Message was edited by: theflyingmonkey on 7/18/11 4:46:40 PM CDT
theflyingmonkey
Former Member
Message 9 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

I checked my event viewer and said that the most recent event with Windows File Protection was two days ago and there was only 3 events logged, when I had to restart after the update to Verison 11.0.572 for the Security Center.  Also, I had some other warnings that were related to ftdisk.  I know that the ftdisk is unrelated, but could I ask you what this error means?

yippeekaiyay
Former Member
Message 10 of 10

Re: Hard Drive space decreasing after newest version

Since you are having Windows File Protection warnings on an XP SP3 machine, I would definitely check out this thread and report the issue there so we have a more comprehensive list of people experiencing the issue: https://community.mcafee.com/message/198995#198995.

I strongly suspect the loss of hard drive space is tied to the Windows File Protection warnings. It appears to me System Restore is using up this space by automatically backing up system files that are being checked by Windows File Protection, but I haven't been able to get anyone else confirm it. Like I said before though, I'm no expert. I do know when I removed McAfee, these issues immediately stopped. When I installed McAfee, they immediately re-appeared. I never experienced these issues before version 11 came along.

No idea what the ftdisk warnings are.

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