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Peacekeeper
Message 21 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I agree Smart timer is not that smart. Are you updated to 10.5 version yet in it scheduling handled better. There you must ensure no PC activity in the 10 minutes prior to scheduled time and scan should start around then. I tested mine yesterday and scan did start fine. We mods have added a thought to the 2011 wish list for the ability to disable smart timer I some hold hope of the feature being added.

Peacekeeper
Message 22 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I suppose 1st thing is what version and build of security centre have you.. I do not know what version Dell pushed through. !0.5 starts scanning and updates better but they are also sensitive to you doing anything on the pC. Seems users complained that updates come through when they are doing things so Mcafee added smart timer which stopped updates when any activity was happening. Theey then got users complaining re no updates so brought out 10,5 which has the following options built in.

1.When a scheduled update occurs, McAfee checks to see if machine is idle. If not,  waits 10 minutes and checks again. If idle, installs update. After two hours of  checking, if machine is still not idle, update will proceed anyway

2.and this given to me as explanation

I found out why scheduled scans don’t kick off when you schedule them to.  The
answer is that we want to avoid interfering with use of the system. 
Specifically, we

a.     
wait for 10
minutes of no mouse or keyboard activity, then

b.     
do a 10
second scan of the CPU; then

c.      
if the CPU
remains under 10% utilization for that 10 seconds, the scheduled scan will kick
off.

                                                             
i.     
Note that
there is an ultimate time-out on the scan delay – scan will start no matter what after a specific (I do not know it) delay.

It works ok now with mine.

Re uninstall preinstall not always necessary I uninstalled 2 times testing the process in past 2 weeks and never used it. I agree should be mentioned in that FAQ.

Message was edited by: Peacekeeper on 31/08/10 6:00:27 AM
RonH
Contributor
Message 23 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I hope you don't mine my jumping on this topic but I just upgraded to Total Protection 2010 from Security Center 2009 and I have a question about automatic scans. I usually turn my machine off each night and with Security Center 2009 scheuled scans would take place soon after I booted the machine on scan day no matter what time that might be. I'm wondering if this is the way Total Protection 2010 works? I checked the online help and couldn't find any reference to this.

Thanks,

--Ron

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 24 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I assure you we haven't let them forget about this issue.

RonH
Contributor
Message 25 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I also had 2009 and didn't have any problem with updates or scans. They were at least more or less predictable. I find the current system confusing at best. Especially updates. I've only seen one actual automatic update since I installed Total Protection 2010 but I'm sure there have been more. For example, SiteAdvisor Plus has been updated from version 3.1, which was the installed version, to 3.2 but I have no idea when that took place and checking the logs show 0 updates. As I said, very confusing.

I would personally prefer a return to the way updates were handled in previous versions... or at least a switch somewhere in preferences to toggle this behaviour.

I'm also not enamored of the current user interface but I suppose I'll get used to it after awhile. At least it loads faster than 2009.

--Ron

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 26 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I hear you.  I can't wait until the beta of the 2011 product comes out and we can check it out to see how many of our suggestions have been adopted.

forum
Contributor III
Message 27 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

https://community.mcafee.com/thread/26023

See this thread for more information.  There are actually many threads in the community related to this.  Funny thing is when I spoke to a McAfee technician a little over a week ago he said it was the first he heard of the scans taking long/not coming on in a reasonable time period/no indication of scan or update/ until I alterted him to check the community forum.  Seems like McAfee is playing catchup sicne 7 came out and my guess is the technicians have their hands full.  Pity they did not preapre better.  Hopefully 2011 will clean it all up (fingers crossed).  After having to spend time cleaning up in April after McAfee stuff and ongoing scan/update problems, and having to make a software move to a lesser product because a financial software was discontinued I feel like this year has not been good for off the shelf bought software, sigh, 2011 must be better!

Peacekeeper
Message 28 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

Agreed I have high hopes

RonH
Contributor
Message 29 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

Thanks for the pointer to that discussion. I had, in fact, already read it while doing some research on the update problem.

I got to wondering though... and checked my firewall settings along with my firewall logs. The logs show a computer at McAfee attempting an unsolicited connection to my computer on a number of occasions. Apparently those unsolicited connections were refused although there's no indication of that in the logs. My firewall security level is set (by me) to Outgoing Access (Recommended) which is what the on line help says is default. However, when the software was installed the firewall was set to Full Access which seems patently absurd to me and which is why I changed it to Outgoing Access (Recommended). However, if I click the Restore Defaults button it goes back to being Full Access and I get a popup from the tray asking me to choose a location, public, private or work. (or similar words)

I wonder now if this may be the cause of updates not being checked. There was supposed to be an update check today at 5:17PM but that time came and went with no update. However ten minutes after the update time had come and gone the update time got changed to, I think 9:30PM. My antivirus DAT file's creation date is yesterday... 8/29/10. When I had Security Center 2009 I got a new DAT file or program update every single day. My current update logs still show zero (0) updates installed. However I know that updates were installed on Sunday just before Total Protection 2010 did an automatic scan. At least I got a popup from the tray saying as much. That's the only time I've received any notification at all regarding an update.

Something just seems awful screwy here and it's making me very unconfortable.

--Ron

forum
Contributor III
Message 30 of 39

Re: Scheduled scans?

I do not know about firewall logs and the like.  I also left whatever the default was when I installed.  But I did check in navigation/about and saw that today there was a virusscan update.  But just like you said the security report shows no updates.  Unless it is only referring to a full update of the internet security system.  And there's no way of checking what the terms in this 'new ' 2010 mean.  I do not go to help anymore because when McAfee decided to change my nicely working 2010 (bought in fall 2009) Total Protection to this version with less features I realized that the help was still written for the old version and also I am tired of all being out of sync.  So seems like it may be updating and scanning ok (when it feels like it) --at least I hope so-.  There is no way of knowing unless you take time away from work to check all which defeats the whole purpose of having commercial software.   Hopefully we will all make it through the 2010 version McAfee year with no crashes and other mishaps due to missed scans and updates.  Sure was nice to see the scan and updates as they were occuring in the old 2010 version and in all previous versions  I do not even get the notification boxes anymore.  And scan did not take 5-6 hrs!  I still do not understand why they just cannot reinstall the old 2010 version while they fix this 'new' buggy version.  Somethings are certainly amiss and hopefully will be corrected soon.  A bit scary since the macines are so central to all now.  Maybe they need a version for 7 and should reinstall the well working (pre APril 2010) version for those of us with XP SP3 and Vista.

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