Bought BD Antivirus 2009 a few days ago and have run into more issues than any purchased piece of software in recent memory.
What I run on my most complex (Win) system:
XP MCE SP3 -- all updates current
HP a1620n, 1 GB
plus NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS -- most recent driver according to MS update
Beyond TV -- listed here because it seems to interact with BD
Vista Virtual Deskops -- listed here because it interacts with other things on occasion, although it does not cause stability issues
Before BD: Very stable, no crashes at any time
What I have seen that I consider problems or issues:
- Initial installation hung on step 7.
- System crashes every day, especially when running Beyond TV. Regular crashes with BTV + BD GUI.
- Scan scheduler does not accept times -- changes them almost randomly to earlier in the evening, making it useless.
- Cannot shut down processes or control start up of processes, even though I'm system admin.
This MUST be considered a bug. No program should prevent the sysadmin from controlling it.
Also it should be impossible for a program to do this to itself, but that's another story.
- Ignores unchecking "Load BitDefender at Windows starup" -- loads not matter what
- Believes there is an administrator account even though there is only HP_Administrator
This HP MCE system came this way -- and the HP stuff seems to need it that way. Stupid but I didn't do it.
- Manual update causes more updates, even though I just updated it at installation.
- Startups much slower -- but that's only a problem if it crashes regularly -- which it does
- Seems to work better on other, simpler systems, although BD thinks the recovery system on an XP Thinkpad is a rootkit.
What I tried:
- Rechecked MS update
- BD repair
- Turn off all auto/realtime processes I could from the GUI
- Attempted to shut it down or cause it not to load -- no permission! I tried this both as my account (which has full admin privileges) and as HP_Administrator. So, there are still multiple processes running, even though I did lots of things to stop them.
I'm not sure I will continue to run software which I cannot control as sysadmin, even though I have paid for it. I read somewhere you have to do it from safe mode. If true, that is not acceptable.
Q1: I'd be satisfied with something that never runs any process until I launch it to scan. Can I do that?
Q2: Short of that, I'm looking for recommendations on how to make the system more stable. Or should I give up?
