Spybot File Scanner window flickers and may not work.

Hi all,

I'm running Vista SP1 x64.

I have noticed that the Spybot file scanner window that pops up when you right click on a drive icon in the My Computer window, appears not to work and the list area flickers.

You mean when clicking your main drive icon?
I tried it on my C: drive,and got pretty much what your description sounds like,with the list flickering,etc.
But,the rightclick scan is geared more for scanning single files.I have no problems with rightclick scanning those.You'd probably be better off using rightclick scanning just to check single files,not a drive. :)

When i right click on any drive icon.

You are right, right clicking on a drive icon and selecting the "Scan using Spybot Search & distroy" causes the spybot list area to flicker and appears to not be work but when right clicking on a single file it works just fine.

It would seem to me that either the install should be smart enough to not put the context option on a drive icon menu or make the feature work for an entire drive as well.

Just to be clear,

1. Spybot works by scanning a system drive only - right?
2. Does it scan the entire drive or do you have to scan each user account?

Yes, Spybot-Search&Destroy scans the default fixed drive (usually C:\) but it does not scan file by file one at a time.

2. I would suggest you scan using an Admin Account as that scans the whole drive (not file by file) and it covers all the user accounts.

Ok, thanks...

1. Will any account with admin privileges work or does it have to be the admin account?

2. So Spybot is of no use if i want to scan an entire system drive pulled off of another computer and connected to my system as an extra drive? In other words, i would have to install and run Spybot on every system who's system drive i wanted to scan?

nelsonm:

1. Any administrator account but in Vista you must elevate the administrator rights in order run certain things within Spybot-S&D. There are several ways to do that:
   
   • Elevate the administrative rights for a single running:
     
     • Instead of double clicking (left clicking) to start Spybot, right-click and select "Run as administrator" from the context menu.
   • Permanently elevate.
     
     • If you are running Spybot from a desktop shortcut for example, right click on the desktop shortcut and select Properties.
     • Then go into Application Compatibility and select "Run As administrator".
2. To run a full scan on your system as well as a drive from another system and the "/allhives" parameter to the start of SpybotSD.exe. See these two FAQs:
   
   • Are there any command line parameters?
     http://www.safer-networking.org/inde...=faq&detail=30
   • I have two installations on my hard disk. Can I scan both at the same time?
     http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/41.html

thanks for the clarification.

So the only down side is that Spybot will scan both the active and inactive hives. You can't tell Spybot to just scan inactive hive(s) on another drive only?

I thought that even with /allhives, Spybot would only scan the active system C: drive and not other drives attached to the computer.