MSE Issue

Gadgetman496

I have a newly installed and fully updated XP Pro SP3 machine with MSE as the security program.

Since installing MSE I immediately noticed everything was slow to open. For example, if I double click a video file it takes Approx 8 - 10 seconds for it to start playing, it takes a similar amount to open the home page using Firefox.

If I go to the MSE settings and untic the "Monitor file and program activity on your computer" the problem is instantly cured & everything opens instantly. Disabling that Tic box actually turns off MSE so that not a runner either but it does indicate that MSE is causing the problem.

Is that just the way MSE is when run in conjunction XP or is there anything else that can be done to improve the situation other than using another security program?

bhickey

You could try another program but I don't think you'll see an improvement. Antivirus software has to check the files that you open, espicially applications. MSE, if anything, generally seems lighter on resourcres than some of the others.

You could try letting MSE exclude certain file types if you're confident that those file types are harmless.

Gadgetman496

bhickey wrote: »

You could try another program but I don't think you'll see an improvement. Antivirus software has to check the files that you open, espicially applications. MSE, if anything, generally seems lighter on resourcres than some of the others.

You could try letting MSE exclude certain file types if you're confident that those file types are harmless.

I understand all that but this example is extremely noticeable & does not occurr with AVG.

I have a Win 7 system using MSE & the delay on that is not noticeable either.

Gadgetman496

bhickey wrote: »

You could try another program but I don't think you'll see an improvement. Antivirus software has to check the files that you open, espicially applications. MSE, if anything, generally seems lighter on resourcres than some of the others.

You could try letting MSE exclude certain file types if you're confident that those file types are harmless.

I understand all that, but this example is extremely noticeable & does not occur with AVG.

I have a Win 7 system using MSE & the delay on that is not noticeable either.

johnnybmac

I repair a lot of computers (Mostly Virus, malware removal etc...)

When I'm done I usually install a decent "free" antivirus program, usually Avast or MSE.

I have noticed though, that MSE seems to become a bit of a resource hog on any XP system that I have installed it on, regardless of the specs of the machine. Whereas, even in Vista with only a half a gig of ram it seems to run very lightly...

I searched online and tried lots of the suggested tricks, but eventually, I gave up and installed Avast...

Gadgetman496

I have it sorted now and everything is sweet again

Applications like Firefox.exe Wmplayer.exe, Winword.exe, EXCEL.exe etc were all being scanned on execution regardless of weather you were opening a file or not and this was causing the undue delay.

I added those to the "Excluded Processes" in the "Settings" section of MSE and everything is opening instantly again

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bhickey

gadgetman496 wrote: »

I added those to the "Excluded Processes" in the "Settings" section of MSE and everything is opening instantly again

Interesting tip. I tried it for Firefox on a couple of XP machines here but it didn't make any noticeable difference. It must be some machine you have if it opens Firefox instantly the first time

Gadgetman496

bhickey wrote: »

Interesting tip. I tried it for Firefox on a couple of XP machines here but it didn't make any noticeable difference. It must be some machine you have if it opens Firefox instantly the first time

It's a fairly good machine & running RAID 0 but it's nothing too special.

That said, it is definitely opening FF instantly now

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coylemj

gadgetman496 wrote: »

It's a fairly good machine & running RAID 0 but it's nothing too special.

You're running RAID-0 on a PC? RAID-0 delivers best performance but abysmal reliability, this is because if either of the disks crashes you lose everything.

Say a hard drive has a one in a hundred chance of crashing in a given calendar month. With RAID-0 you need both disks to not crash, the chances of this happening is 98% (1 in 50). With a single disk the chances of a crash and losing everything is 99% (1 in 100) but if you give up half the capacity and reconfigure as RAID-1 you can now survive a crash of either disk but not both and the chances of both crashing in one month are 1 in 10,000, the square of 100. So reconfiguring from RAID-0 to RAID-1 will increase the reliability of your machine by a factor of 200 (10,000/50) at the expense of half the usable capacity.

Gadgetman496

coylemj wrote: »

You're running RAID-0 on a PC? RAID-0 delivers best performance but abysmal reliability, this is because if either of the disks crashes you lose everything.

Say a hard drive has a one in a hundred chance of crashing in a given calendar month. With RAID-0 you need both disks to not crash, the chances of this happening is 98% (1 in 50). With a single disk the chances of a crash and losing everything is 99% (1 in 100) but if you give up half the capacity and reconfigure as RAID-1 you can now survive a crash of either disk but not both and the chances of both crashing in one month are 1 in 10,000, the square of 100. So reconfiguring from RAID-0 to RAID-1 will increase the reliability of your machine by a factor of 200 (10,000/50) at the expense of half the usable capacity.

I fully understood the implications associated with RAID 0 when I set it up & decided that speed and space were priority. I safeguarded myself by making an Acronis image of the system when fully tweaked and can fully recover from a HDD crash within 15Mins Approx.

I have not had any issues with it but have tested the Acronis backup to ensure it would work, and it did, flawlessly.

Appreciate the lesson in probability though

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