Dealing With Computer Issues Related To Antivirus Programs

Monday 28th March 2011 4:26 PM

Dealing With Computer Issues Related To Antivirus Programs

A virus is one of the most common reasons for computer problems. Every year billions of pounds and millions of hours of hard work is lost to these malicious pieces of code. This is one of the reasons why it is highly recommended that you must never operate your computer without installing a reliable antivirus program.

Even though antivirus programs are vital for any computer, sometimes they are also known to create issues that may obstruct the smooth functioning of a computer. This is due to the simple fact that antivirus programs are similar to other computer applications and are made up of several files that are vulnerable to file problems. However, most of these issues can be dealt with by users themselves.

Some of the common issues related to anti-virus programs are:

• A virus infection: There are some malware files that disguise themselves by having names similar to legitimate anti-virus programs to avoid detection. For example, mrhealthy.exe is a legitimate file of Norton-360 protection software. Many malware files may have similar names such as mrhealty.exe, mrheallthy.exe, mrrhealthy.exe, or mrhelthy.exe and cause problems on the system. In such a case, you need to perform a thorough scan using a reliable anti-malware program to get rid of the rogue files.

• Incomplete Uninstallation: If the file that is causing problem is a genuine file like mrhealthy.exe, then chances are that you have been using the anti-virus program Norton 360 previously and have not completely uninstalled it. Therefore, it is recommended that you ensure complete uninstallation of an anti-virus program before installing another one. In order to uninstall big software programs like Norton 360, it is prudent to use third-party uninstallers that remove all files and its associations from the system.

• Internet errors: Some of the files associated with antivirus programs tend to interfere or slow down the process of web browsing by hogging internet bandwidth. A common example of this is the error message that is displayed when you open Internet Explorer:

"The instruction at 0×7c9101b3 reference at 0×781ffcfe memory cannot be written. avgnsx.exe application error"

Such application errors can be rectified by disabling certain features of the anti-virus program. In the above case, it can be done by opening the AVG interface (avgnsx.exe file belongs to AVG antivirus software) and disabling the Link Scanner feature.

• Conflict between files: The presence of multiple antivirus programs on your computer may lead to conflict issues and create problems. The result of such a situation is frequent errors and/or system slow down problems. Therefore, you must always verify that you have only one anti-virus program installed on your computer.

• Clogging computer resources: Antivirus programs are usually huge applications and some of their files tend to slow down your system by clogging its resources. A common example of this problem is the avgcsrvx.exe file which is known to consume up to 100% of your CPU when the Antivirus program AVG is performing a thorough scan of your system. In order to deal with such an issue it is advisable to perform virus scans when you are not working on the computer.

You can also take a few preventive measures on a regular basis which will help you keep issues associated with anti-virus programs at bay. These include deleting temporary files from your computer, scanning your Windows registry and defragmenting your hard disk.