McAfee VirusScan Professional 8.0 tech help needed-McAfee support useless

Paul Davidson

Paul Davidson

Joined
Apr 3, 1999
Messages
2,052
I hope somebody here may possibly be able to help. I have McAfee VirusScan Pro ver. 8.0 running on my computer. I decided to run a complete scan today since I have been having some weird hiccups on the system. I just wanted to rule out a virus before I went further. I am running Windows XP with SP2 installed.

I always run VirusScan so that it will scan all files. This usually takes a few minutes and there are thousands of files scanned. Today it scans for a few seconds, says scan is complete, and scans only 76-78 files (the number changes). Well McAfee wants more than the cost of the software basically to do one tech support phone call ($39.95 per issue or $2.95 per minute) so I decided to try the chat method. After well over an hour of "chat" I am still in the same situation. Their tech person (Kelly Brock) seemed unable to answer any questions directly. I have 3 pages of the transcript saved if it would help. I deleted my temp files folder also.

Any ideas? My head is aching from banging it against a virtual wall. :rolleyes:
 
ya probally wont like this advise.. but I had that program for about 3 days also .. and ditched it ...
Here is my advise.. get Nortons 2005 system works.. works like a charm ..
.~Jeff
 
Ditch McAfee and get AVG Antivirus. It is free and works alot better. I have been using on my wife's desktop for over a year now and my system comes up clean and if I do get a virus it is easily remedied.

AVG Free Edition Download Page

I also use Norton System Works 2005 on my laptop with AVG as a backup. I give high marks to NSW 2005.
 
K.V. Collucci said:
Ditch McAfee and get AVG Antivirus. It is free and works alot better. I have been using on my wife's desktop for over a year now and my system comes up clean and if I do get a virus it is easily remedied.

AVG Free Edition Download Page

I also use Norton System Works 2005 on my laptop with AVG as a backup. I give high marks to NSW 2005.
Click to expand...
I second AVG. I've been using it for over 4 years now, and it's excellent (& free!)
 
Paul;

I'm also running McAfee VSP 8.0, and it works very well for me.

One thing you need to do is make sure all of the boxes are checked in the section marked 'Scan my computer for viruses'. You also need to make sure it scans 'My Computer', so it catches everything.

Also, it is wise to configure it to do a system scan automatically at least once a week.

If I can be of any more help, you can PM me or email me.
 
CODE 3 has it.

Automatic scans are really needed these days. Make sure you have enabled automatic protection. When you scan, make sure the options to scan all drives and memory (the entire computer - memory & media) are selected.

Personally, Norton works much better for me then McAfee ever did.
 
Well I had good luck with Norton in the past and didn't realize until after I had ordered and received this machine that I had a choice. I have heard horror stories form people that have tried to uninstall one virus program and switch to another. Supposedly it is very difficult to completely uninstall Norton or McAfee, and that the two programs don't play nice together. I don't have personal experience, but 3 different people I know have related similar stories. Therefore I would like to make McAfee work and go with anothe program on the next machine.

I have it set up for automatic protection. I usually run a full scan about once a week, depending on how much time I have been on it. My wife ran the last two scans.

I'm going to try some of the advice I have gotten here and from a friend and see what happens. I am just bugged that McAfee (Make A Fee?) wants to charge me to fix a problem with their program.

The transcript of the chat session is quite funny since the McAfee techie did not answer a single question I asked and for much of the time I wasn't sure they were reading my posts at all. They sent me to a site to run a diagnostic program and then threatened to boot me from the chat since I hadn't replied in 60 seconds! One minute and they get snippy. It took at least a minute to get answers to questions that I didn't ask.
 
Paul;

What I mean by 'automatic scan' is that you personally don't have to initiate a scan; the software does it at a time selected by you. Mine runs every Sunday at midnight, while I'm asleep. I only get a pop up message if it catches something, and the pop up is promting me for action. You also need to make sure you have the updater set to automatic, so you get the latest virus protection.

If you shut down your PC every night, this won't work. I leave my PC running 24/7 and only do a reboot once a week, or when prompted by automatic updates. I highly suggest you leave your PC on all the time, so not only do you have the virus scan scanning your machine automatically, you have the updates happening during non peak hours. This is also true for automatic Windows update, and the Microsoft Anti Spyware.

I uninstalled Norton, and installed McAfee not too long ago, as it is the same stuff I have on my other two machines, and yes, I had a little bit of difficulty, mainly because I didn't get all of the Norton deleted the first time. I liked Norton, but I am not going to pay $40 a year just to renew, when McAfee's renewal fees are much less.

Good luck.
 
AVG and Avast are both excellent anti-virus programs available at no cost to home users. If you're not happy with McAffee's support (I sure wouldn't be), screw 'em.

Personally, I focus more on prevention than detection. I have an anti-virus program installed, but rarely use and do not want it running constantly in the background using system resources. I never open e-mail attachments, never share files with strangers, and always have a firewall running any time the computer is connected to a network.

If you can figure out what sort of virus/spyware is infecting your computer, there are usually specific removal tools that can be found online at computer security websites.

Good Luck,
Bob
 
Well I "fixed" it. In the preferences area at the beginning of the scan procedure I unchecked all of the boxes and then rechecked them. Ran a scan and it scanned all files just like it used to do. :confused: Not really sure how that fixed anything, but....it works now. I suppose it could be some weird coincidence. The only box that got checked that hadn't been checked before was the "Scan within compressed files" option.

Code3,
I haven't been running automatic scans because I turn the computer off every night. My comptuer hours vary quite a bit so I would rather just run the scan when I know I won't be using it. Maybe I have control issues. ;) I do have it set up to update automatically.

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions. The next time I have problems I'll just ask a bunch of knife collectors instead of wasting time with the "customer service" people.
 
K.V. Collucci said:
Ditch McAfee and get AVG Antivirus. It is free and works alot better. I have been using on my wife's desktop for over a year now and my system comes up clean and if I do get a virus it is easily remedied.

AVG Free Edition Download Page
Click to expand...

Ditto. McAfee and Norton both gave us lots of trouble on XP Pro, so we switched to eTrust for work machines and AVG for personal machines. Both work great, but AVG is FREE. Been running it for over a year now and no viruses.
 
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