[Macpartners] VirusScan processes

[Patrick M McNeal]

On 12/10/08 2:46 PM, "fjk at mit.edu" <fjk at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> I have seen the following problem on one Mac G4 running 10.4 and one G5
> running 10.5 and both trying to run Virusscan 8.6.   The VS on G4 was running
> amok on the system, starting numerous VShieldScanner processes. It brought the
> whole system to its knees and it was impossible to do anything else. We needed
> to start up from a CD, start the root process and uninstall VirusScan.
> On the G5 (my own), VirusScan does spin up a few VShieldScanner processes, but
> the dual 2GHz system is able to keep running despite them. These processes
> become fairly passive after a while.
>
> Do we need VirusScan? Do we need any anti-virus software at all on a Mac? Am I
> seeing a bug in VirusScan? Is there a fix?

Hey Felix - We're currently working with McAfee on this problem, but
unfortunately, they've not provided us with a fix yet.

To help us track this issue and follow-up with you once there is a fix,
please send a note to the help desk (computing-help at mit.edu).  In your note,
mention that this is related to ticket #768207.

--Patrick