Need help with spybot+ scan never ends then freezes computer

We have had the free version for a month or so and decided to purchase the full version. Since then it just hasn't worked. Now the computer freezes up, spybot is "not responding" and when I can get it to start a scan it gets to 100% and keeps going for about 30 minutes and starts over automatically and then the numbers stop at 4.7% every time. I couldn't get it to run while the computer was in safe mode. If someone can offer some advice I'd really appreciate it. And also, the update service says stopped. What's going on?

Are you running Spybot as an administrator?

You can do this by right-clicking the Spybot icon and choosing the option to "run as administrator". This must be done to give Spybot the permissions it needs to function correctly.


If you have completed a scan already, please go to the Spybot program folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Spybot - Search & Destroy 2

and run the file SDCleaner(.exe) as an administrator using the instructions above. This will open the results of your last scan so you do not have to run a scan again to find the same threats.

You can then remove the malware by clicking "fix selected". Sometimes the scanner will say "not responding" at this point for a few minutes but will begin responding again as normal when all the issues are fixed.


Regarding the scan restarting, this happens when the malware scan completes and the virus scan (which is not included in the Free Edition) begins. The virus scan may stop updating progress at 4.7%, a known issue with some systems, but if it is still moving through virus signatures the scan will complete and update you with the results from both scans when it has reached 100%.