Pestering Popup

[conticreative]

I bought and installed PC Tool's Spyware doctor a few days ago on my Win 7 workstation.
I guess it's working fine, but since I have installed it very frequently (way too frequently) I get a popup from the taskbar saying something along the lines of:

"Intelliguard has been installed/activated [...] snip. Would you like to perform a scan?"

Here is what I find very annoying about this alert:

1) The tone of the alert makes it sound like I just installed or Activated Intelliguard. Instead I chose to have it on since I first installed SD. That's fine for the first day you install it, but a week later is still saying that?

2) A scan a day, unless there is an infection, should be enough. However, I see this popup close to 4 or 5 times an hour.

3) Today, the popup appeared about 5 times in close successions while I was busy working on something. I pressed "Cancel" each time only to get it agaion after less than 5 minutes.

4) Finally, I got exasperated and I did choose to perform the scan. While scanning, the popup appeared again at least 3 times. Each time asking me if I wanted to perform a can, which I was already doing.

5) I finally tried to deactivate intelliguard. It's a nice feature, but way too annoying. Guess what? Now the popups tell me just as frequently to activate intelliguard if I want to avoid having the legion of doom take over my computer.

What I would like is for IG to just sit there and either perform a scan on demand, perform one when needed or just shut up and sit there.
I hate popups and I especially hate it when I cannot turn them off. This one is also pretty big for a taskbar alert and it seems to appear more frequently when I working in that corner.

I have not yet written a review of SD on my blog because I wanted to make sure I knew how to use it and that I evaluated it completely, but so far it's not looking too good. I am sure it works well for malware, but it's way too annoying.

Did I miss the switch to turn the alerts off? I did find one and checked it, but it had absolutely no effect on the alerts or their frequency.

Thank you

[katie]

Hi,

First off the popup should not appear as often as it does. In my case it never pop's up unless I have disabled IntelliGuard and then when I re-enable IntelliGuard it will show that popup and it will ask if I want to run a scan. Other than that, I never see this popup. And I haven't seen anything like this from others.

It looks as though the IntelliGuard status could be switching status' on its own or something like that. Have you checked this out to see if this is infact the scenario as this shouldn't be happening. Just have a look at the SD GUI and see if anything is happening.

There is also an option in Settings: "Do not display messages and alerts from PC Tools" this might stop those messages.

[conticreative]

Thank you for your replay.
Indeed this behavior cannot be right. No one would be able to work with thi thing popping up with the frequency it does on my computer.

I was indeed wondering if there may be something wrong with my installation (or even a virus or trojan) whreas my program acts like it has just been installed or switched on.

For instance, today I have barely seen the popup. Yesterday it was continuously popping up.

In a sense, this is what I needed to know: if this behavior was normal or not. I got my answer. Thank you.

PS: I am not marking this [solved] even though I did get an answer that confirms my suspicions. In case I find a solution/cause I'll post here.

[AChen]

As Katie has mentioned, it could be related to IntelliGuard turning on and off or this problem could be the result of the service restarting for some reason.

If this problem does re-occur, could you please provide us with info from the Windows 7 Event Viewer so we investigate this further?

To get the info from the Event Viewer, please see below:

Go to Start-> type event viewer
-> click on Windows Logs-> right click on Application-> SaveAll Events As...-> You can simply attach the info to this thread, or you can email it to me.

[conticreative]

Thank you for the help. I attached both a CSV and a evtx file (don;t know which is best and they are quite large otherwise.

looking at the error log tells me that I may want to redo my win 7 intallation. I think I may have got infected quite early in the game. I may keep this installation for as long as it takes to clean my data storage drives and my backups and then I may start from scratch. Lots of funky things like this one.

Thank you again.

[AChen]

Many thanks for the log files. We are currently investigating this info and if we locate any problems from the logs, we will address this issue.

[AChen]

We have implemented a fix that should resolve this issue. A fix will be available sometime early next week :) Will keep you informed.

[gojuryu3]

Hi I'm afraid I'm new to all this and not very techy, I don't even know if this is the right thread:confused:
I had the free version of Spyware Doc for 6 months and it was fine. This along side of Macafee that my Dell came with. However I run Vista home premium and I have had problems with that and Macafee so bought the upgrade and all still fine.
I now bought PC Doc Pro v5 and also am trying out the beta version of the 2010
that was offered.
Intelliguard occasionally turns itself off and prompts me to reset it,my machine is running slower, contrary to what I was promised, it also freezes, regularly, which it never did before and finally about every other time I use PC Doc pro v5, it refuses to switch off, wether I click the X or right click the system tray and close it from there.
I can reduce it to the system tray but it doesn't go till I switch off.
All is reset on switching back on.
I joined this....err whatever it is to see if there is someone out there who could help a pensioner understand if it's me or the gear that got it wrong:D

[haapy]

What upgrade did you buy McAfee or Vista?

Try disabling or uninstalling McAfee and see if your problems go away.

To completely uninstall McAfee, you should get the uninstall tool from the McAfee site. Not a great product in my opinion.

If uninstalling McAfee works, you might want to consider Spyware Doctor with Antivirus.

Spyware Doctor, v5 is old. The latest is v7, no longer in beta.

[gojuryu3]

Yeah! I have had problems with Macafee ever scince I bought the computer.
It's a Dell Dimension PC and had macafee and vista VR9 already loaded.
Interesting that you say my version of Spyware Doc is old as I only purchased it in July just gone?
Also I signed up to test the beta version (with anti spyware) and downloaded that on 1st October.
To be fair most of my problems seem to stem from that download, we got an e mail to tell us something had gone wrong with the download and I re did it as instructed, e mailing back for further info, but I never got a response:(
My agreement with Macafee runs out in February next so I think I 'll do as you suggest and dump the thing. I'm actually looking at a tutorial now, on how to get the uninstall tool:cool:
Having just read my post I'll clarify:- I have 2 products, Spyware Doc and PC tools Doc Pro V5.

Thanks for the response, it's cool to know that there are people who understand these things out there.....who also have probs;)

[haapy]

Here is the info on SD and SDA

http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61050

If you are going to use SD or SDA and you had troubles with your beta, I would suggest that you uninstall it, note any customized setting that you may have made, make sure that the \program files\Spyware Doctor is deleted, download and re-install SD or SDA and apply any custom settings. The original license that you purchased in July will still be valid and the system will remember it.

If you continue to use McAfee by itself until February, surf carefully. If you are going to run both SD and McAfee, it may cause conflicts and slowdown of the system, you be the judge on how well they play together. I have not used McAfee in a very long time.

[gojuryu3]

Thanks for the info I will try doing as you suggest.
Sorry for the slow reply I've been working in the middle east for a week.

oo err hope the tax man can't read this;)

[conticreative]

I noticed that my thread got hijacked a bit, but I am stil dealing with the popup coming up every 10 minutes on occasion.

In reading the thread looks like that McAfee and SD don't play very well, but I am getting a bit tired of buying Antivirus products and while I loathe McAfee, it comes free and I have 6 computers to take care of. (Only one with SD in case you wonder).

In any case,, the popup is still very much an annoyance and now MacAfee also has become equally annoying, informing me 5 or 6 times a day that "I am not protected".

What really makes me mad about the McAfee popup is that all I ahve to do is click a damn button and "fix it" Like they could not make it do it automatically?

In any event, what's the story with the new release that should fix the issue? I am just about to chuck everything and start working exclusively on my Mac so I don;t have to deal with the pain of constantly having to close popups.

Thanks for the update.

[AChen]

We have released the new version of SD. Could you please upgrade and see whether this addresses the problem?

For more info, please click here (http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61050)!

[conticreative]

Hi guys, I am afraid that while the frequency of the popups seems to be somewhat reduced, they are still there after I downloaded and installed the new version.

As usual, it says "I have been installed!" and asks me if I want to run a full scan, which it is set to do daily if I remember.

This popup instead to seemingly appear every time I need to scroll or close a window or access my taskbar, hovering right over where I need to click. It's like it can read my intentions.
Just to give you an idea, since I started writing this post, including the time to take a screenshot, the alert window has shown up about 6 times. When above I said that the frequency had decreased, I guess I was wrong. It's funny how it seems to have accelerated once I came to this forum to write this post though. I have been working with GoToMeeting teaching a class for about 4 hours and in that time I have seen it only twice. Now it has been popping up incessantly.
I attached a screenshot of the alert. Maybe that will help.

As I wrote before, what's disturbing is that the message makes it appear as if I just installed the software 5 minutes ago, while this new version has now been running for at least 2 days and the program has been installed over a month ago now.

Here is the screenshot. There is another issue I wanted to post here but I'll do it in another post. It may be related.

http://www.conticreative.com/images/intelliguard.jpg

[conticreative]

While writing the previous post, toward the end just as I was about to post it Antivir gave me a message that it found a "threat" This is the log of the alert (which it gave to me 11 times with overlapping windows):

Virus or unwanted program 'HTML/Infected.WebPage.Gen [virus]'
detected in file 'D:\WWW\NorcalSolar.org-a+\language\index.html.
Action performed: Deny access

That file belongs to a website fileset where the site was indeed defaced with an Iframe insertion containing numerous links to via-gra like ads.
Since I am a web developer and I had to repair the site I had to keep a copy locally. I don't need it anymore and I will delete the entire set, but here are my questions:

1) This is what's in the file:


<html>
<bodybgcolor="#FFFFFF"><iframe src='http://url' width='1' height='1' style='visibility: hidden;'></iframe>
</body>
</html>

It once contained the offending links (and I am sure there are other pages with similar code elsewhere - It's a huge site), but now all it has is this Iframe which should be innocuous. Is there anything else in the file to trigger the alert that I cannot see from opening it in a text editor?

2) SD opened (as I mentioned) numerous windows with the same alert. Invariably I clicked either "delete", "quarantine", "ignore" (after the first 4 or 5 alerts) and so on, but every time the alert reappeared often multiple times.
What's the use if it cannot delete or quarantine the offending file, regardless of what's in there? If it can't delete or quarantine a .html file I am afraid more malicious files may be even harder.
(By the way, there seems to be a copy of the file in quarantine)

3) This is unrelated from the above, but even after extensive research I have failed to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why someone would deface a website using a script like the one above. The links are invisible to the user. They are only present in the raw code and even turning CSS off the Iframe remains invisible.
What is the purpose? The links obviously were some kind of advertising. I fail to see how that could justify the time and effort to go around the web defacing websites. Maybe you can explain the motivation to me.
Consider it a down payment on the popup issue :)
(which, by the way has been popping up about once a minute while writing this)

Anyway, it's that index.html file more dangerous than it appears?

Thanks for your help. As a fellow programmer I understand your position, but I really would like to stop the popups or I'll have to unistall the program.

[AChen]

Conticreative, can you check the SD directory and see whether you have the file called "bugreport.txt"? if so can you send this to us?
If you don't have this file, when you see Intelli-Guard turn off or you notice that the service is down, check the SD directory as a file should be created.

[conticreative]

I am starting to feel like I am being ignored here and I already have a complete review of Spyware Doctor ready to go on my blog. The review is not bad, but I surely make a big point about this annoying popup and the inability of tech support to either give me a fix or at least apologize and tell me that I am pretty much stuck with it.

Even the latter would be better than being ignored.

At first support has tried to be helpful, that's a fact, but as soon as the usual fixes proved not to work, I feel like I became "persona non grata" on this forum.

To recap, under certain circumstance, I haven't really figured out what triggers it specifically, but GoToMeeting for instance is one of the triggers, I get this incredibly annoying popup letting me know that "Intelliguard has been activated" and asking me to perform a scan.

The problem is that this popup reappears on average every 30 seconds or so. Sometime more frequently, sometimes less so. Regardless, I am tempted to click cancel using a shotgun instead of my mouse!

That would feel really good, but only if I get to do it on the programmer's computer screen.

I have tried everything. I went through the preferences line by line. I tried blocking it from Windows 7 taskbar manager.
It has been months now and I still don;t have a solution.

Please, I beg you: HELP ME!
I can't stand it anymore :(

http://www.conticreative.com/images/public/intelliguard.png

[Support]

Hi Conticreative,

[QUOTE=conticreative;224418]I am starting to feel like I am being ignored here and I already have a complete review of Spyware Doctor ready to go on my blog. The review is not bad, but I surely make a big point about this annoying popup and the inability of tech support to either give me a fix or at least apologize and tell me that I am pretty much stuck with it.

Even the latter would be better than being ignored.

At first support has tried to be helpful, that's a fact, but as soon as the usual fixes proved not to work, I feel like I became "persona non grata" on this forum.
[END QUOTE]

I see that Achen last replied to you in this thread on 11-30-2009, which also happened to be the last thread until you posted yours again on 24 January 2010.

Did you find the "bugreport.txt" and sent it to AChen as requested by his post dated 11-30-2009?

Anyway, have you tried in Spyware Doctor/Settings/General uncheck the box that say "Intelliguard Tools display popups alert windows" and/or the other box "Do not show messages and alerts from PC Tools" to see if that will prevent this particular popup?

By logic and understanding of the Spyware Doctor program, if for whatever reasons the Intelliguard was previously deactivated and then reactivated again, it is logical as a precaution for it to prompt you saying it is back on and would you like to run an intelli-scan.

I have to admit it is not a bad idea to have an option in this alert popup that let you choose " Do not show this alert again" for users like yourself.

Regards,
Dark Sword

[conticreative]

Thanks for the replay. To answer your questions:


Did you find the "bugreport.txt" and sent it to AChen as requested by his post dated 11-30-2009?

It has been quite some time, but I remember following all instructions that were given to me and I do have that file generated. So I assume I sent it.


have you tried in Spyware Doctor/Settings/General uncheck the box that say "Intelliguard Tools display popups alert windows"

The reason I have not unchecked either of those boxes is because, as I understand it, it would eliminate all alerts from SD. Which would be a bit beside the point. I do want to be alerted, but not pestered by the same alert over and over.
But, that does work. I just don't feel safe without the alerts.


By logic and understanding of the Spyware Doctor program, if for whatever reasons the Intelliguard was previously deactivated and then reactivated again, it is logical as a precaution for it to prompt you saying it is back on and would you like to run an intelli-scan.

Indeed, however, I never touch those settings and I have been experiencing this popup since the very first day I bought and installed the program.
One of the thigs I find annoying about it is that it makes it look like I just installed the program.
For instance, I have tried running the scan mostly to get rid of the popup. Amazingly, the popup appears even while intelliscan is running!
I also run the intelliscan every day at 2:00am. It's not like I don't use it.

Now, that's a bit idiotic, if you ask me. Why prompt me to run a scan I am already running?

Absolutely, having a checkbox saying "do not show this alert again" would be wonderful.

Honestly, I have been looking for a good Antivirus. I would have happily bought Antivir if it wasn't for these two reasons:

1) The infamous "Intelliscan" popup.
2) The huge window that appears on my screen every morning after (or while) the scan is in process that prompts me to buy Antivir (or something, I no longer even read them).

And let me add another reason here, even if it's a bit off topic:

Many times, I turn turn on my monitor in the morning only to find out that Intelliscan (or whatever it is) is still running. Since it's set to run a 2:00 am and it's usually 9:00am by the time I get to work, I have to wonder what the heck it has been doing so far.

Turns out that it's waiting for me to tell it to "clean" some files. Most often low level ad related cookies.

That doesn't see right to me. The scan it's often around 15% and it's dead in its tracks waiting for me to respond. Why not continue scanning and simply add to a cue so that when I get to work the scan is done and all I have to do is tell it to clean some files?

Am I being unreasonable?

But I appreciate your prompt and helpful response. If for some reason the bugreport.txt file was never received I'll be happy to send it again.

[AChen]

Conticreative, could you confirm the version of SD that is installed on your system?
We have released a new version of SD and this build includes some fixes to the service that might resolve the problem you are experiencing. The problem you are experiencing is quite an unusual one, because something on your PC is crashing the SD service, hence the Intelli-scan pop-up.

If you already have SDv 7.0.0.514 installed, we will require some Event Logs as this may help us to see what is crashing the SD service.

[conticreative]

Indeed I have SDv 7.0.0.514 installed. I'll have to send a log in, but since I switched off the alerts (or I got the upgrade, I just noticed yesterday that a number of files were updated) I do not see the alert popup any longer.

Maybe I solved the problem that way as it seems that SD is working still, I just don;t get any notices. I am not sure how dangerous that is.

Thanks for your help

[AChen]

Indeed I have SDv 7.0.0.514 installed. I'll have to send a log in, but since I switched off the alerts (or I got the upgrade, I just noticed yesterday that a number of files were updated) I do not see the alert popup any longer.

Maybe I solved the problem that way as it seems that SD is working still, I just don;t get any notices. I am not sure how dangerous that is.

Thanks for your help

Could you try turning on the alerts with this latest version and see whether you are still receiving the notifications?
Yep, like I said in the previous reply, we added some fixes to the service and this may have resolved the problem that you were experiencing.

[conticreative]

Since I made the latest changes I did not see the popup at all until about an hour ago. Since then it has been a popup fest!
Unfortunately, I had to do a lot of work using Firebug and guess where that popup appears? Right over the firebug window.

Since it started again, I'd guess I have seen it with an average frequency of once ever 3 or 4 minutes. With clusters of about 1 every 20 seconds and longer periods without a popup.

Something on my computer is causing this popup to appear. I am convinced of it. For example, whenever I use GoToMeeting the popups appear furiously.
Other applications (like Firebug) seem to have the same effect, although in the latter it could be that it's particularly annoying because I'll be typing some code and suddenly the popup takes over focus.

I just went over every possible screen in SD and I read the manual cover to cover. I can't find anywhere a reference to this screen. It looks like something I should be seeing upon installing Intelliguard and never again.

By the way, my machine is a windows 7 64 bit processor. Could that have something to do with it? Things are getting better in the 64bit world but we are still a long way from perfection.

Just thought I mention it.

Any help, would be really appreciated. Can someone post again how to retrieve the report? I have been looking but I am so tired I am cross eyed.

[AChen]

Could you provide us with updated logs with the latest version of SD installed. You can follow the instructions from my original thread (http://www.pctools.com/forum/showpost.php?p=218819&postcount=4).

I also have Firebug installed as well as Windows 7 64 bit, but do not receive any of the pop-ups so far. So it could be any problem that is running in the background that could be causing these notifications to pop up. We'll hopefully be able to figure this out with the updated log files :)

[conticreative]

Hi, some time ago I sent the logs and I installed a different version you sent me the link to, if I recall. In any event, I remember following the instructions to the letter and unistalling the software restart and install again.

At first it seemed like the problem was solved. The first day I did see one popup, but since no scan was done yet, I pressed "yes" and I went on.

The following days the popup returned, still with the idiotic copy that it seem like I have installed the program 5 minutes ago, but it wasn't as persistent as it used to be. I could live with it.

More recently, it has started again showing up in spurts awhile it's still not as frequent as before, it still shows up at least every 5 minutes and it will do it for easily 4 or 5 hours. Somehow, it seems to like afternoons better.

Just to give you an idea, a popup appeared right before I came here (which is why I am here) and I have had since then 2 more. I did stop for about 5 minutes to answer a call, but it's still too much. If I say "No" I'd expect it to be no for longer than 5 minutes.

Incidentally, whenever I work with Firebug, Dreamweaver or Photoshop, that's when it's at its most annoying because it steal focus from what I am doing. It seems to like waiting until I just grabbed the right class in Firebug to steal focus and make me start all over again.

Also, because I am bad typer, I cannot count the times that while answering emails I kept writing a full sentence or more only to discover that I had typed over the popup and I got nothing on the screen.

I remember, I bought the pro version of this software, or at least I seem to remember spending $25. No matter. I'll take the loss and the risk because this is a bit to much.
Here it goes again. This makes 3.

I have run an intelliscan earlier today so I don;t think I really need one right now, but I said yes just to stop it from pestering me.

Any chance this thing can be addressed in a future release?

[conticreative]

So, in my last post, about 5 minutes ago I reported that at the 3rd popup I clicked on "run intelliscan" just to get it out of the way.

Well, you can check the posting time, it wasn't long ago. I just got another popup and as far as I can tell, no intelliscan has been started.

I know by now you must hate me. I would. But stop for a moment and consider my frustration. Not only this thing pesters me to run the scan. When I finally give up and I do it, it still pesters me and then it doesn't run it. It's like having a 2 year old toddler running around my computer.

[Slowpode]

I am also experiencing the pop up problem on my PC... I'd like to add some informations about that:

I found out that a little before the pop up appears, the Spyware doctor front end reports that it has lost communication with the Spyware doctor engine.

I am also running this software on an XP machine that had the problem; I was able to see that DrWatson was activated about 15-30 seconds before the pop up appears, indicating that the Spyware doctor had crashed.

On my french windows 7 system, when I try to launch a scan, there is a problem with the module that scans the browser, causing an immediate crash and the popup about 30 seconds later. The popup will re-appear if i click yes because the intelli-scan uses the browser scanning engine, causing a crash.

I hope this helps.

[conticreative]

Thank you so much for posting this. It was lonely out there being the only jerk with this problem apparently.

Mine is driving me insane, but for instance this morning has not popped up at all yet. It usually does in the afternoon, but when it starts, there is no stopping it.

Microsoft just released a new security tool as a free download for Win7 users. I am trying it out now., If it works half as well, I am going to ditch the PCtools one and stay with Microsnot. I hate to do it, but I also hate the popup.

[katie]

Something is not playing to nicely with the service or is crashing it out.
Only things I can suggest is to:
Make sure you have the latest version of SD, which is version 7.0.0.538.
See if enabling Kernel compatibility mode within SD helps.
Try turning off behavior guard in MyAccount> smart update, exit and restart SD and see if this helps with the problem. (you can also PM achen to have this done manually)