MSE was disabled by a virus attack

Clifford, do you have Secunia PSI installed? It will scan for vulnerabilities in loads of applications, including the popular ones such as Flash / Adobe Reader etc... It's well worth installing to make sure you're fully patched.

Did anything come up during a scan after the system restore? I wonder if there are any remenants left behind. I occasionally use online scanners from ESet / McAfee just to double check that Kaspersky hasn't missed anything.

Are you running them both in real time mode? I suspect it may cause some performance and possibily detection issues if so - although there's no harm in running one real-time and one on demand .

Both in real time and no, not any issues or slow down. Somewhere I was reading about MSE and it said how it was designed to be compatible with most other AV programs.
I think there are just so many variables with system set-ups and hardware etc that's it's almost impossible to give a definitive yea or nay to anything. What works fine for one won't be right for someone else.

I used to run MSE & Avast together in real time mode, I noticed no ill effects. When I setup the two, I had them avoid scanning the other one's files. This was when MSE had just arrived on the scene, yet to be proven, and I had used Avast for two years, with no problems.

In January of this year, when the popularity of MSE was rising, and proven, I uninstalled Avast from everything, except Win 2K, which MSE won't install on. Both are good AV's, but MSE leaves a smaller footprint, and offers complete protection. As I've already stated, I run Malwarebytes on all of my Windows OS's as my second line of defense.

However, a similar attack happened to me a few months ago, on Safari, but I didn't have the presence of mind that C_C had when he was attacked. I panicked instead. Probably because an attack that bad had never happened to me before. Hopefully, it won't happen again.

Cat

Running two active anti-virus programs in realtime is not recommended because of conflicts and performance - both want to be first to process and both use system resources.

http://ask-leo.com/can_i_run_more_th..._should_i.html

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_10...hreadID=116760

You're right, it's not recommended, and I've never recommended it to anyone. I did it at my own risk. Actually, I didn't want to give up Avast until MSE proved itself, and in time it did.

BTW, I see that you're one of Leo's readers, too. He really knows his way around, and is a solid preacher of backing up your computer.

Cat

Like I said though, there is 'recommendation' and then there is real life. I'm not totally discounting your comments TM but I really don't think there are absolutes when Windows are concerned. Too many variables in both hardware, settings and programs installed.
I run and (have done so since I put MSE on my machine) AVG and MSE all the time, without conflicts, without issues and if there is a performance degradation it's not enough for me to be noticing it.

Use this simple tool to test your reboot time:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...tart-time.html

Then remove AVG and test again. There will be a dramatic difference. Possibly even half the time, only. That difference also applies to every disk access your machine makes.

I'll have a play but like I said as it's not impacting on anything I'm doing I'm not worried. Back when I was having trouble with Carbonite backup I was trying various confiurations of MSE no MSE AVG no AVG etc etc.. In the end it was all about the same.
If it aint broke why fiddle with it I say.

Ps . So there is no confusion remember I'm still running XP.

I agree, if it's not broken, why fix it? If you have a good security configuration on XP, stick with it. For me, the last couple of years of using XP Pro, prior to buying a computer with 7 preinstalled, all that I dealt with was viruses. If you have things under control, keep it that way.

Plus, a lot of new hardware still is XP backward compatible. The Kodak printer that I bought a couple of weeks ago works fine in XP.

Cat

Guess I must be doing something right. In all the yrs I've had PC's only once got a virus and that was because I was not paying attention in a chat room and clicked on a link without looking. The Anti-virus (full version) I was using at the time could not fix it and AVG free did, been with AVG ever since.
I doubt any two peoples experiences are the same when it comes to using software, there are just too many variables. seems the only thing we all agree on is Ccleaner.
It wil be interesting to see my expereinces once I swap over to Win7. Might then change my views, we'll wait and see.