.cab files

[Eric]

Whenever I try to do a full scan with McAfee, it freezes on .cab files and goes no further. This has just started and I have had McAfee for several years. Can I just go in and delete all my .cab files without causing other problems in my PC? Or is there another fix to that?

[exbrit]

A scan usually stalls if it can't unpack a compressed file and of course.cab files are a form of compressed file.   This can happen if the files are corrupted or often if there are disc read errors on the hard drive itself.

You don't state what operating system and service pack this is but the procedure is basically the same for all.

If XP when signed in as a user who has Administrative rights, go to Start > Run and type in cmd and hit Enter

If Vista or Windows 7 for to Start > type cmd in the Search box and when it shows in the space above, right-click and select 'Run as Administrator'.

In the Command Prompt windows type chkdsk /r (with the space as shown) and click Enter,

You'll get a prompt asking if you want to run at next boot, type in 'Y" and click Enter.

Reboot and let it run.  It can take a long time.

If you have more than one hard drive or partition and the drive letter is not the default one which is 'C:' then type chkdsk X: /r (with those spaces and change X: to whatever the drive letter is).

Hopefully that will smooth the way for VirusScan to run.

If not, have you been running Registry Cleaners lately?

I would not consider deleting .cab files as they are system files.

If that doesn't work then it may be best for you to contact Technical Support Online Chat via the link under Useful Links at the top of this page.

They can link with your machine to troubleshoot.

.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 25/06/11 6:32:33 EDT PM

[Eric]

t has been almost 3 hours and still running. I am using XP (don't know the service pak), with Firefox as the browser. Only one hard drive with no partition.

I have not run any register cleaners in a long time. I have RegCleaner and CCleaner installed. Should I run one, or both?

Once this finishes, I will try your suggestion...thanks very much and I will post here how it goes...could take a while.

[exbrit]

Right-click My Computer and go to Properties and tell me what it says there for operating system and service pack info.

Firefox is up to date I assume and your Internet Explorer should be IE8 and all your Windows updates should be applied...I hope.

Don't run Registry Cleaners, that's why I asked, they can cause this sort of thing.

What is running?  VirusScan?  You mean it eventually gets through all the files anyway?  

Run that chkdsk anyway, it can only help.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 25/06/11 10:10:27 EDT PM

[Eric]

It is XP Service Pak 3, Firefox is up to date and IE8 is also loaded. The scan took well over 3 hours, which is a lot longer that it used totake. I ran the check disk as instructed and hopefully that will help. Thanks for the advice.

[exbrit]

OK if it doesn't improve then give Tech Support Chat a try as I suggested earlier and good luck 😉

[Eric]

Looks like I will have tocontact tech support....no change in the time it takes to run a scan  3+ hours. Thanks again.

[exbrit]

You could try custom scans - in that you can tell it to omit .zip and other complressed files as in figure 1.  (click to enlarge), although that may not be a desirable thing.

Double-click the taskbar icon to open SecurityCenter

Click Virus and Spyware Protection

Click Scan your PC

...and/or you can tell it stop using minimal resources which will make it hog more CPU and memory and run faster.  See figure 2....

This can also be done in the Scheduled Scan settings.

[exbrit]

I forgot to ask, how big is the hard drive?   These newer and larger HDD's can take ages to scan especially if full.

[Eric]

It's a 300 GB hard drive with only 23 gb used. It used to scan very quickly up until the past couple of weeks or so. I'll try those suggestions above.