Hello
I have McAfee security suite running on my PC because my cable company offers it free. But it hogs so much resources, and it slows down the computer so much.
I decided I wanted to run it with out McAfee for awhile. I went in the services.msc and shut down almost every thing that says McAfee. One thing I could not disable was "McAfee scanner" it says I'm not allowed to shut it down. It must be some protection so viruses can't disable it .
The computer is running much better and faster without all the McAfee running but does anyone know how I can disable the McAfee scanner in services.msc or in the Mcaffe software itself.
Thanks.

Hello Jplink,

Rather than disabling the McAfee services, I would open MSConfig.exe and just disable the McAfee startup programs.

Click Start -> Run -> type msconfig, hit enter -> Click the Services tab and reenable all the McAfee Services (click "hide Microsoft Services" to make it easier to find) -> click the Startup tab and disable all the McAfee related entries.

The reason for this is at least with the services still enabled, you can open McAfee at your own leisure and run updates and a full scan without having to reload the services.

Having the services enabled won't add processes to your background if you tell McAfee not to load any of its programs on startup.

But if you're comfortable the way you have it now, having that one process isn't going to do anything but show up in your task manager.

Hope that helps!

Hi wadd, Thank you very much for the info.
I did disable all the McAfee related entries in the startup tab of msconfig. I thought the more services are running the more resources are used on the PC and the slower it becomes.
Isn't having the process (McAfee scanner) scanning constantly for viruses in the background slowing down the PC?
I'm trying to boost the boot up the speed and response time as much as possible for the system.
The computer takes well over a minute to boot to the user accounts screen.

If McAfee isn't up and running, then the real-time scanner shouldn't be active. Basically, just there and watch that process for a while and see if it keeps pinging the CPU column.

Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Processes tab, then just watch the McAfee process for a few minutes while you open files and surf the web (leave the task manager open, it will stay on top of every window). I'm imagining it is just going to sit there and do nothing since the program isn't actually open.

If it is still pinging the CPU constantly, I would just use the McAfee removal tool and get rid of it forever

Trend Micro Internet Security is my preference $59 for three licenses. Takes very little resources, easy to use, good customer service.

Thanks for the help Wadd
I removed Mcafee for good.
I checked out Trend Micro website, as for right now I'm useing thier online scanner, seem to be very good. I think this along with Windows firewall should be good for me.

Hi jplink I would highly recommend that you try out Avast free edition. You can get it here Free antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition
I use it and it's really reliable, also very low on system resources.

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