Conflict with Mcafee

CCleaner for Windows CCleaner Windows Bug Reporting
1

Rather cross as my awful antivirus Mcafee has been crashing - due they tell me - to conflicts with popular and regularly downloaded software. Bit long winded but thought you might like to read my exchanges with them when they tried to repair their product.

quote:

GoToAssist (16:33:06):

Thank you for contacting McAfee Consumer Support. An agent will be with you shortly.

GoToAssist (16:32:27):

Customer Bill accepted request to share screen.

Vibinlal (16:32:43):

Hi, Bill.

Vibinlal (16:32:49):

This is Vibinlal from Tier 2 team.

Bill (16:32:52):

hi

GoToAssist (16:33:52):

Representative Vibinlal has requested system information from customer Bill.

GoToAssist (16:33:55):

Customer Bill has sent system information to representative Vibinlal.

Vibinlal (16:36:25):

Bill, from your system information, I could find that you have installed Gary Utility and CCleaner in your computer. These software conflicts with McAfee and may cause this issue.

Vibinlal (16:36:30):

Shall I remove it?

Bill (16:37:33):

no. I am suprised that an anti corruption program should be compromised by very normal progs.

Vibinlal (16:39:55):

Bill, I understand your frustration and realize that you have spent a lot of time and effort in resolving this issue. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused in this regard.

Vibinlal (16:40:23):

I would like to inform you that this issue is due to compatibility between registry cleaner utility and McAfee.

Bill (16:41:58):

Then your software really is not very good if it can be overridden by very popular and normal software. Believe Dell need to know of mcaffee inadequacy - please try and fix.

Vibinlal (16:42:36):

Bill, in order to resolve this issue, we need to remove Gary Utility and CCleaner and then uninstall and reinstall McAfee.

Bill (16:43:37):

but this means I will loose the value I have from these two progs which I have used for many years?

Vibinlal (16:51:53):

Bill, we will not be able to fix this problem, without removing the conflicting programs.

Bill (16:53:28):

sorry to say this but have read much bad press on Mcaffee. Never expected this sort of problem but if you are really telling me that mcaffe no good if 'certain' progs installed then I must join non supporters club.

Vibinlal (16:56:25):

I understand your concern and I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

Bill (16:59:49):

Very disappointed and sure you will understand why I need to advise Dell who have charged me best part of £1k for a laptop with free 'security' which is clearly limited and vulnarable. Realise you can do no more but your marketing people need to know why I shall be addressing this with various forums. Not your personal fault I know but you have a faulty product here. Happy to close at that...........thanks for trying,

Unquote.........

buyer beware !

....................

2

good morning crikey. The cause of your problem is probably due to the fact that you have ticked the macafee clean box in the application section. All you need to do is to untick the box. The mcafee clean is deleting log files, one of which tells mcafee update the state of yor system. Mcafee needs to know the state of your system before downloading updates or reinstalling your product.

This is not mcafee's problem nor is it ccleaners problem. It is your problem.

I have bben with mcafee 9 years and whilst it hogs resources etc etc.,it does do what it says on the tin very well. I am not claiming its the best av but itsan honest/helpful company. But now that Intel have bought it............need to keep your eye on mcafee.

If you can find a better on line help company than mcafee do tell us.

3

^ Mcafee sales agent in disguise! ;)

4

Criky18 is right. He has a legimate problem. Or perhaps more accurately, a combination of two problems. First, if I do check the McAfee option - which is off by default - CCleaner 'cleans' something that McAfee thinks it needs. And second, if McAfee can't recover from a missing log file or whatever by surveying what modules are installed and what revisions are up to date, and requires a full uninstall and reinstall at that point, then they have some work to do as well.

The McAfee supporter's challenge to 'find a better online help company' is easily met. While there are far too many companies who are just as bad - or worse - McAfee's 'support' (or lack therof) is the subject of hundreds of similar complaints in their own Customer Support forums - and some of those are mine. The McAfee tier-1 folks often have two initial answer to every problem: "It's yours (or someone elses) fault", or "Uninstall and Re-install". And even tier-2 people who can be helpful - if you can get tier-1 to involve them and then direct them to the real problem - often resort to the same mind set as seen above.

I have, for example, an open and well documented problem with a McAfee script. Windows detects a script error and offers to debug it for you. McAfee support has looked at the debug display showing a failed reference to an empty tab/label and claims that's a Microsoft problem since Windows found it, Their suggested fix is to turn off all script checking. That problem has been 'open' for over 8 months now, and while I check on it every now and then, they consider their response to be a 'fix'.

5

McAfee has a long history of snafus which deleted user files and data. Two of those incidents, one a few years back and the other several years ago, were major incidents. Years ago I stopped using McAfee since their AV product horribly slowed down my computers. I agree as well that Criky18 is right. No AV product should be able to be brought to its knees simply by deleting one simple file. Moreover, it is mind blowing that McAfee would allow the user or any other process to delete a log file which is critical for McAfee knowing the update status of the software itself.

6

Is there a reliable Anti Virus Software that will not cause problems with CCleaner or similar software

7

g'day Kat and welcome to the forums.

are you having McAfee conflicts as well? (this is a 6 year old thread)

8

not yet just want to find out if I can avoid them as I would like to keep my laptop running smooth and fast. I have a year of Mcafee Livesafe but i have noticed things are beginning to lag. I want to get ccleaner or something similar but need to know if there is an AV software that will be reliable and not give conflicts

9

the quick answer for your concerns is NO.

no software will always be 100% compatible, reliable or conflict free. 

I've tried many AV's in my time, some for as long as 10 years, but eventually they make some dumb executive decision to move their product in a certain direction that I don't agree with and eventually go 'enough is enough' and find a replacement.


the good news is, there are plenty of replacements and after switching, you usually end up saying "why didn't I do this years ago?"

plus - we don't have crystal balls to predict the future. (damn that) :)

10

I've tried so many of them over the years and the one rule of thumb I've noticed is all of them have issues rather it be actual bugs, something cosmetic to do with the GUI, or just being downright slow. But you have to try a bunch of them to figure out which one gets along with your system the best such as not severely impacting performance.

Also don't forget if you use Windows 7, 8.x, or 10 there's Microsoft Windows Defender - which I'm sure is the bane of all the big antivirus companies.

11
9 hours ago, Andavari said: 
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		Also don't forget if you use Windows 7, 8.x, or 10 there's Microsoft Windows Defender - which I'm sure is the bane of all the big antivirus companies.
	</p>
</div>

I'd say that most who are using WD are those who would be using the free version of an AV anyway.

So it shouldn't be affecting the AV companies profits that much, - yet.

Personally I see the WD situation as a direct comparison to what happened with car radios, - at one time a radio used to be an extra that you had to buy seperately, now they are expected in every vehicle and are built in as standard by the manufacturer. 

(Which must have been a blow for Motorola et-al when it started).


To take the comparison further you can still pay to replace your standard car 'radio' with a 3rd party one if you want something else, just like you can replace the 'standard' WD with a 3rd party AV.

12
4 hours ago, nukecad said: 
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		(Which must have been a blow for Motorola et-al when it started).
	</p>
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Motorola started not too far away from where I live (a stones throw), and so did Champion (the spark plug, etc., manufacturer).

Although Windows Defender is competing against free AV's it does however mean 3rd party AV's will still loose out because they can't interest people who don't have their free AV installed into switching to a paid version, because people will never see their Upgrade button or offer.

13
8 hours ago, nukecad said: 
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	<p>
		So it shouldn't be affecting the AV companies profits that much, - yet.
	</p>
</div>


They must be feeling the pinch by now.


I for one used to spruik the benefits of AVG, Avast and the like, then I switched to promoting Norton's as it was being sold (retail) for $AUD13 (so why wouldn't you!) but then Win10 came along with an AV that scores equally as well as any other AV on the market, so I now push Defender at every opportunity.

14
13 hours ago, mta said: 
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		They must be feeling the pinch by now.
	</p>
</div>

Well they can always diversify, and move into other software areas.

Maybe they could buy out a company that develops/sells something like a Crap-Cleaner, or a defragmenter, or a recovery application, or .......:P