Long scan

[Near_Far]

Hello,

The startup scan normally takes just a few minutes to run and it vital to protecting your computer from advanced threats. If it is taking hours to run on your computer, I would suggest opening a ticket with technical support to investigate this behavior.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Description:  To not have ESET perform an entire scan of one's computer at each startup set as a default action.

 

 

Detail:  I personally don't want that, it really bogs things down, and on one system the scan takes about 1 1/2 hours.  It wasn't easy on my Windows 7 system to stop the scan either.  It took several times of clicking the 'x' to make the scan stop.  I had to consult the help section to find the settings to disable this feature.  Scheduling a full scan according to one's choice would be fine.    Or maybe a 'quick scan' of the most common problem areas, like Microsoft Security Essentials does?  If a startup scan must be done at all, that is...

 

Is ESET doing a full scan on startup, or a quick scan?  The first scan ESET ran on my Windows 7 laptop, which ESET started without my input after I initially installed it, did take 1 1/2 hours.  When I restarted, the scan started up and I didn't let it complete.  I'll try re-enabling the startup scan and I'll see how long it does take.  I don't recall ever having had security software that does a scan on startup before this.  

[Marcos]

Is ESET doing a full scan on startup, or a quick scan?  The first scan ESET ran on my Windows 7 laptop, which ESET started without my input after I initially installed it, did take 1 1/2 hours.  When I restarted, the scan started up and I didn't let it complete.  I'll try re-enabling the startup scan and I'll see how long it does take.  I don't recall ever having had security software that does a scan on startup before this.

 

Only a quick scan is run when the operating system starts and it's the only scan that is run by default. Normally it shouldn't take more than a few seconds for the scan to finish.

You've mentioned that you didn't let the scan complete. However, startup scans are run silently in the background and there's no way to stop them. That said, I assume you stopped a scheduled disk scan instead of a startup scans.

[Near_Far]

Yes, I believe you are correct, Marcos.  It looks like this was a scheduled scan I was stopping.  

 

I'm going to look into this some more and see if I can figure out the task scheduler.  Anything that is in my list of tasks was put in there by ESET, and there's nothing there about a full computer scan, only a startup file check.  Yet it looks to me like ESET was about to do a full computer scan.  Clicking on the edit button on the tasks does show 'computer scan' as a choice of scheduled tasks.  Startup file check is also a separate choice.

 

I've rebooted the netbook with the 'startup file check' enabled in the scheduled tasks and I'll watch ESET and let it do whatever it's going to do with that.  And then I'll report back.  

[Near_Far]

OK, the netbook has been powered up for a couple of minutes, and hovering over the ESET icon in the systray shows there is a "startup scan in progress".  The last time this happened this morning, I stopped it after 10 or 15 minutes, but I'll let it do its thing now and see how long it lasts.  

 

Edited to add:

 

OK, now I feel silly.   The startup scan did complete in a very short time.  When I opened up the user interface, I clicked on Smart Scan to see the progress of the scan, and my doing that started a full scan.  

 

I guess I'll leave the startup file check option in the scheduled tasks, since it doesn't seem to be an issue.  

 

Now ESET informs me I need some Windows updates, so I'll get that done.  

 

Thanks for bearing with me!  

[Marcos]

Startup scans are very important for protecting your computer and potentially cleaning troublesome malware. Should you encounter an issue with them, it's better to contact ESET and try to find a solution instead of disabling the startup scan tasks completely.