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Full Scan doesn't scan everything?


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Hi all.

On an XP SP3 computer with multiple user profiles, I did a Fast scan in safe mode on a profile of a person that has Administrator rights. Cleaned up what was found. Then rebooted normally, and ran a full scan for the same person. Also cleaned up what was found. Then rebooted again, ran another full scan. Came back clean. Every time I go into that user profile now, the scan comes up clean on both Fast and Full. I thought that meant the computer would be clean. Imagine my surprise that when I logged into another user profile (also Administrator rights), there most definitely was still some kind of infection, and sure enough, a Fast scan found 'stuff' :angry: - 25 hits!

Which brings me to my question: should a scan be performed for each user profile on the computer?

If so, why? Shouldn't the malwarebytes scanning heuristics pick up these infections anyway? You can see it scanning other user profile folders, so why isn't it picking up some of them unless you are logged into that profile at the time?

In other words: what is the appropriate scanning procedure for Malwarebytes to get all the nasties on a PC with multiple accounts?

Thanks.

EDIT: none of the profiles are encrypted, but they do have passwords

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I need logs to tell you anything .

My guess is that registry traces where found in other profiles .

I do not know of any scanner that loads all user registry hives for a full scan .

Also passwords are designed to keep other people out of those profiles . We may look into adding system rights scanning but I think some people might be against that as well . A system rights scan would see right through password protection .

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I need logs to tell you anything .

My guess is that registry traces where found in other profiles .

I do not know of any scanner that loads all user registry hives for a full scan .

Also passwords are designed to keep other people out of those profiles . We may look into adding system rights scanning but I think some people might be against that as well . A system rights scan would see right through password protection .

Not a problem. As long as I know this is what is going on. I erroneously understood "Full" to mean the whole computer. Since I posted I have pretty much confirmed for myself that each profile needs a scan.

I have also noticed that if you do a scan in safe mode, then go back and scan in normal mode, it can still find stuff. Not yet confirmed if this means I had to re-log into the profile in safe mode first for the post-scan cleanup to run, or the hit I get during the normal scan would be a hit anyway.

I would like to know the most efficient way to scan a whole computer with one profile, and with multiples.

In the past I have safe booted with Networking and logged into the Admin account as it was more likely to work, done scans, and then rebooted back to the original user id. I now realise that wasn't right...

On a 4 or 5 profile system, doing a scan for everyone gets to be time consuming! :angry:

EDIT: Does FULL scan everything that QUICK did again?

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... Scanning in Safe Mode will allow malware to be missed, because it is not running during the Safe Mode boot. We recommend users always scan in regular boot mode and quick scans only.

Quite true. The Malwarebytes Direct Disk Access (DDA) driver, along with several others, do not work while Windows is in Safe Mode. The DDA driver allows MBAM to scan for and detect malware that is protecting itself. There is no need to run the scan while Windows is booted in Safe Mode, as MBAM can detect and remove anything it is capable of detecting while Windows is booted normally. Running the scan while Windows is booted in Safe Mode limits the abilities of MBAM, so we recommend against it.

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