I think I am going to have to change my opinion about MSE, which has been quiet and unobtrusive for a long time, but suddenly has started acting up, and I don't seem to be able to get it to behave. The issue is that every day, as soon as the computer is idle, MSE insists on starting a full scan in the background. A full scan on this machine takes about six hours to complete, and involves a ton of disk activity. Sure, the task stops as soon as a work on the computer, but I really don't want the machine to be constantly busy with those pointless scans.
This is triggered by the hidden MpIdle task that MSE installs in the task scheduler. MSE will re-create that task if I delete it or modify it in any way. I searched the web for advice on this, and there were claims that this behavior would stop once a full scan is completed. So, I ran a full scan yesterday, which completed successfully, and the MpIdle task was gone. However, this morning, after starting the computer sure enough it was back, doing its thing. Does anybody have any advice on this? If this doesn't stop, then MSE will be gone, for good.
P.S.: For now, I have stopped the insanity by creating my own task that removes MSE's MpIdleTask as soon as it's created.
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Just go into settings and uncheck "Run a scheduled scan". I do that as soon as I install MSE on any of our computers and none of them run any scans in the background.
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Pirx, I too have the task , but as MidnightSun & yuyi64 point out unchecking seem to prevent the launch while idle. Like you I did do a full scan initially. Unchecking Run a scheduled scan in settings seems to prevent the undesired behavior. I would uninstall MSE and install the latest version.
2.1.1116.0, Then do the full scan -
I finally compared registry settings between this computer and three more Win7 machines that behaved normally, and I found that mine had the key SFCState in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Scan
set to a different value than all the others. So I reset the value of that key, and now things seem to be back to normal, with no MpIdleTask created anymore, and no extraneous scans. Knock on wood that this was the solution... -
Pirx, thanks, I have learned from you! Did you set the SFCState to Zero ?
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Notice that there is no message in the event viewer for any of those scans. Looking at the Resource Monitor I can see that MsMpEng.exe performs what looks like a full scan of all the files on my computer. So now I am completely at a loss as to what is going on.
I have now uninstalled MSE one more time, made sure that all its registry keys and folders had been deleted (they were), rebooted, and reinstalled it again. Right now it's performing its initial scan, which I believe it always does on a new install (again, this is a "hidden scan", not the Quick Scan it prompts you to do right after installation). That scan should be done some time late this afternoon. Then I can check tomorrow if MSE again starts scanning. I'll post again once I know... -
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Pirx, in hindsight any idea what might have caused the issue?
Have you ever created tasks for scheduled scans, using taskscheduler perhaps?
Curious about this issue because I can't find anything on Google, glad it's solved though. -
Sorry I can't say more about this. When all is said and done I have to admit that I simply don't understand what happened here. All I know is that I'm glad I resolved this problem.
MpIdle task from MSE
Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by Pirx, Nov 8, 2011.