mcafee virus scan freezes vista

[spot06]

everytime i run virus scan it freezes at the same file then vista freezes as well. I can never get past it. Windows defender does the same. its a dll file and tried to delete it but as soon as it is highlighted vista freezes again. Is there anyway of skiping this file or another way to delete the file besides selecting then deleting it. All help much appreciated.
cheers

[exbrit]

The fact that other applications also freeze at this file indicates a problem with the file. It may be corrupted and they can't unpack it in order to scan it, therefore they freeze and eventually Vista freezes.

Any idea what file it is - name for instance?

Have you tried scanning it in Safe Mode. Tap F8 repeatedly while booting up, then go to the file if you know its location and right-click and select "Scan".

[spot06]

thanks ex-brit, have tried scaning in safe mode and same problem occured. the file is one of many x86_microsoft-windows files located in winsxs. Have not noticed any problems with vista just want to do a full scan but always stuck on this file at 72%. AM not too concerned but would like to scan remaining 28%

[exbrit]

Unfortunately it isn't possible to be selective with a scan so it may be necessary to remove that file to allow McAfee to continue.

Windows will hopefully replace it with a good copy thereof.

Try moving it to another place - like a USB drive or something similar, temporarily, to see if anything happens.

[Battle7799]

Hey Spot - just wondering if you were able to resolve? I'm having the exact same issue with Defender and using McAfee and AVG. Since I don't really have all that much on my laptop, I'm getting to the point where I might do a full system restore and start from scratch. This just started recently too but even when I go back to my earliest restore point, no luck. Any help would be appreciated!!

[exbrit]

Battle7799,

I had forgotten to mention to the OP that sometimes this happens when there are disk errors so doing a chkdsk /r sometimes helps too.

In XP that's done in Start/Run & in Vista in a Command Prompt in Admin mode.

[Battle7799]

Hi all- just to let you know... I had tried disk check previously and it actually froze on me too. So I contacted Dell support and they decided it was an OS issue and the only way to correct was to reformat and reload the OS. Luckily it wasn't that big if a deal for me because I didn't have all that much on my laptop and what I did have on there was already backup'd. Before I did though, I checked the size of the winsxs folder and it was over 8 gig. Size was another complaint about this folder from other posts as well. I was able to run a virus scan after the reformat, but I wonder now if that folder size will grow again only to have repeat this exercise in another 8 months???

[exbrit]

Hard to tell. There's a good description of it here: http://www.winvistaclub.com/f16.html

[silverhawk]

If you have installed Vista Service Pack 2 than you can do one trick to safely recover the HDD space..there is a command that require elevation...so just right click on command prompt and run as administrator, command prompt is located in programs>accessories..and than black window will appear just type compcln.exe and hit enter and voila!!! you will recover your space that is being eaten by winsxs folder..without any danger..