We use McAfee at work, and I had been tasked a couple months ago to figure
out how best to configure it to use with our product. We make multi-million
$$ semiconductor test equipment, so you can imagine if we install SW on the
computer that drives the equipment and it seriously impacts the performance
of the tester, it makes us look bad. Even though we aren't in the business
of anti-virus, we still need to consider such solutions for our customers.
We have had lots of problems with McAfee. The current version we use is
Enterprise 7.1, and the main problem we saw was the on-demand scanning
process (mcshield) would get "stuck" consuming nearly 100% of the CPU. Worse
still is that this process runs at above-normal priority, so it basically
takes over the machine and makes it unuseable. We would see this on various
machines, both customer testers and inhouse development machines.
I finally came across some info that describes a possible issue with an
"obsolete" component that could get installed or left over that may cause
the problem. I found that deleting the folder "c:\EPOAgent" and its contents
mostly solved the problems. This folder was used on older versions to store
files between the processes of McAfee, and is no longer needed, but it
stills gets installed sometimes, or left over when upgraded from a previous
version. Un-installing the older version does NOT remove this folder, it has
to be done manually, but it is tricky because you can't remove it while the
scanner is running. I had to rename it (say C:\EPOAgent1), then reboot, and
then delete the folder and contents.
We still have one machine where the on-demand scanner (mcshield) crashes
when it starts. The product has been completely un-installed and
re-installed with no help. I think it is encountering a strange file it
can't handle, but such a mission-critical app as anti-virus should be more
robust.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I don't particularly like McAfee, but I have
no choice at work because it is the corporate standard right now. Many other
groups and forums recommend AVG or Avast over the other commercial products
(Norton and McAfee)
I know this is a little long-winded, but I hope the information helps
others.
Russ Poffenberger
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: PCSOFT - Personal Computer software discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 5:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Which Antivirus??
> From what I understand MacAfee is supposed to be good too but I've no
> personal experience with it. Regards,
> Daniel
~~~I had McAfee a few years ago and it slowed my computer up so much that I
had to get rid of it. I couldn't even type emails with any speed, and it
would totally hang everything up quite often for a couple seconds at a time.
I'd never consider it again. Carol Hanson
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