JohnnySokko

daledoc1, Thanks for your reply. I guess there's no harm in doing a clean reinstall — even if the problem is only intermittent. I'll try that later this afternoon and see how it works from there. What's the point, though, of using the mbam-clean.exe utility? Please tell me that. Can't I just uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs and then reinstall it after that? What's the difference? On a separate matter, you told me to use the Add Reply button when I reply, instead of the other options, because it will be "easier to read." I have no problem following whatever the preferences of this forum are, but I have to admit, your recommendation is a little confusing to me (and is the exact opposite of how I've been instructed to post elsewhere), so I'd like to clear this up. (I like things to make sense to me. I hope you can appreciate that.) I've always been instructed, elsewhere, to use the Reply button (not the Add Reply button) because doing so will automatically quote the material that one is responding to, and it will make it easier to follow along and read. (Because you can easily see what a person's comments are in reference to.) In light of those reasons, which make perfect sense to me, how does doing it the way that you suggested make it easier than that?

Hello, Thanks for your reply. I haven't been able to get back to you on this until now. The problem that I experience with MBAM stopping mid-scan only happens occasionally — but on a somewhat regular basis. I would estimate that it does it, maybe, once out of every ten scans. After closing the program, after I get the error message, it always works fine on the second attempt at running it. Being that the problem is so intermittent, does this still sound like an "altered" or "corrupted" install to you? I would think, if it were, that the problem would occur pretty much every time that I launch it. Would it not?

Hello, I have two questions. The first one pertains to an error message that I frequently receive after initiating the MBAM scan, and my other question is just a general question. FYI: I am running the free version of MBAM, and my operating system is Windows XP. My first question. . . . Frequently, several times a month, shortly after initiating MBAM, I will get an error message a few minutes into the scan and the program will then close. The error message is from Microsoft and it says, "Malwarebytes has encountered an error and has to close." After I close the program and re-initiate the scan, it works fine. Any idea what could be causing this? Now on to my second question. . . . When I am downloading a product, such as one of yours (or any product, for that matter), what is the difference between selecting RUN or SAVE when prompted in the download dialogue box? They both appear to do the same thing, but there has to be a difference or the choice between the two wouldn't be given. Can you briefly explain what the differences are? I have never been able to fully understand what the differences are between the two options. I tried asking the question on another forum and even tried looking up the answer online, but I only became more confused. I received the following answer on a differnt forum. . . . "When you click RUN, it downloads the installer file and instead of placing that folder in a downloads directory, it keeps it in a temporary folder." That answer wasn't very helpful to me, so I went online and found the following answer from the website Ask Leo! The author, Leo A. Notenboom, states the following (which is basically the same as the other answer). . . . "One important thing to note about using RUN: the file is downloaded into a temporary location, and it may eventually be deleted. In fact it almost certainly will be deleted if you wait long enough, or when you clean out your temporary files. That's why SAVE exists. Use RUN when you only need the download once, such as a song or video you only plan to listen to or watch once." Okay, none of that makes any sense to me. I'm sorry. All of my software that I've ever downloaded has been downloaded using the RUN feature, not SAVE. And I have used all of them more than once. Many programs, like MBAM, I use daily. All of them are on my hard drive. They are not in temporary folders, and despite what Leo (and the other guy) says, they are not deleted when I clean my temporary files (which I do every day since I am a heavy computer user). Every program that I have ever downloaded using RUN is in a folder somewhere in my C drive, and they can only be removed if I specifically choose to manually delete them. So I do not understand any of this talk about temporary locations and the like. UGH!!!!!!! Please clear this up for me, if you can. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Thank you! Your answer covered the question perfectly! :-) Thanks for explaining the issue in such a thorough manner. :-)

My question pertains to the Pro version of MBAM — because I realize that the free version is not a resident program and does not monitor the system. Since traditional viruses are very rare nowadays, why can't MBAM Pro be used as person's primary anti-"virus" program? Most all infections nowadays are due to various trojans and others forms of malware such as spyware, adware, etc. and not the traditional virus that most true anti-virus programs were originally designed to prevent. Since MBAM is so effective at dealing with these newer malwares, why can it not be used to replace the traditional anti-virus program? Thanks.

Thanks for the reply. The funny thing is that I am at my computer for about ten hours a day and whenever I get bored, with doing what I am supposed to be doing, I tinker with things on it (such as pressing the update buttons on all of my programs). Because I tend to get very easily bored, the buttons are always getting pressed. Because of that, my MBAM is always being updated throughout the day, and I am used to seeing what's normal and what isn't. I am used to seeing periodic updates every couple of hours from MBAM. In fact, I would say that MBAM probably issues more daily updates than anyone else out there. But I have never seen 12 of them issued over two hours before. As I said in my original post, I had just updated it two hours previously, and it went from version 7068 to version 7070. Two hours later, when I updated it again, it jumped all the way to version 7082. I thought that was really strange, and I have never seen it do anything like that before. Anyway, thanks for trying to help. I appreciate it. I guess I won't know why that happened.

Hello, I have a question about MBAM. I have used it for years and have never experienced any glitches. However today it did something rather odd that it has never done before. Since I just signed up on this forum yesterday to ask another question, I thought I would go ahead and ask about this while I'm here and see if anybody can explain what might have happened. I am running Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware version 1.51.0.1200. I am running the free version, not the Pro version. When I logged into my computer this morning I updated MBAM. It updated its malware database from version 7068 to version 7070. A couple of hours later, I checked to see if any new updates were available. They were, so I downloaded them. However, this time, it jumped all the way from version 7070 to 7082 (that's 12 new versions over a two hour time period). I have been using MBAM for about four years. I know that it's great at offering several new updates throughout the day, but I have never seen it offer 12 new updates over the course of about two hours! In fact, I have never seen any program do that. This is why I think that something went wrong. Maybe some sort of glitch? Anyone have any ideas of why this would have happened? Has anyone else experienced this or anything like it? Thanks!

Hello, I have been a MBAM user for at least 4 years. I love the product, but it does seem to have one major flaw. It seems to be totally incapable of protecting itself from being disabled by malware infections when they occur. I am sure that I am not the first one to have noticed this, and I am sure that I'm not the first one to have pointed it out. I spend a lot of time online, much more than the average person. I also visit a lot of sites that are "high risk." Because of this, I frequently end up with severe infections at least several times a year. I have gained a lot of experience in learning how to deal with these infections, and I have also gained a lot of experience in using various anti-malware programs to remove them. I have experimented, over the years, with dozens of different anti-malware programs, and the only two that really stand out by working effectively and consistently are Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM) and SUPERAntiSpyware (SAS). No matter how bad the infection is, these two programs have always been able to take care of it. I must point out, however, that neither is totally effective on its own. For a simple infection, or a single threat, they are fine. Either program is generally capable of dealing with it. However, with a serious infection, such as when a trojan downloads many other infections into the computer and the threats are multiple, neither program is able to remove everything by itself. MBAM will always find something that SAS missed and vice versa. Both programs are usually required to thoroughly remove everything after a severe infection. However, MBAM has a serious weakness that SAS does not, and I would love to see MBAM overcome this shortcoming. The problem is that MBAM is not able to protect itself. Every time I get a serious infection, it usually disables my primary anti-virus protection and all of my other installed anti-malware programs as well, including MBAM. However, never once has anything ever disabled my SAS. Every time I get a serious infection, I always rely on SAS to get my computer functioning again. It has never been disabled by any infection that I have ever had. Since SAS is usually always the only anti-malware program that I am able to access after a severe infection, I am able to use it to remove most of the infection. After I get the use of my computer back, with the help of SAS, I then run MBAM to remove whatever is left that SAS has missed. After both programs have done their jobs, everything is usually back to normal at that point. Besides having a primary anti-virus program of the user's choice, I think everyone should also have MBAM and SAS both installed on their computers. Both are outstanding programs, and they really complement each other. Neither one is able to remove every single infection by itself (no program is), but together they do an excellent job of removing almost anything. Personally, I think MBAM does a slightly better job in removing some of the nastier infections. On the other hand, however, I don't like how MBAM has to rely on another program, such as SAS, to come to its rescue and allow it to run after it has been crippled from an attack. I would like to know why MBAM is not capable of protecting itself from being disabled? It usually always becomes disabled after every attack that I have ever had. Granted, it does do a fine job of removing the infections eventually, but only after another program, such as SAS, has cleaned the computer up enough to allow MBAM to run again. If MBAM could protect itself from being disabled as well as SAS is able to, then you would have one of the best products on the market. On the program settings of SAS there is an option that can be clicked that prevents other applications from terminating it. I don't know what kind of processes run behind the scenes in that regard to prevent them from doing so, but whatever SAS has employed in their program to prevent malware from disabling it really works. Why doesn't MBAM have such a feature? I would love to know this, and, even more so, I would love to see it offered. I cannot imagine that designing MBAM with the ability to not become disabled from an attack can be that difficult. Is it? I don't see why it would be. After all, SAS has this ability. I am sure the programmers at MBAM are just as talented, if not more so, than the ones at SAS. In other words, if they can do it, you can too. It just seems as though it isn't a priority to make MBAM better in this regard. I hope I am wrong about that because no matter how good MBAM's detection and removal capabilities are, it doesn't matter if the the program is susceptible to being easily crippled. Can somebody (hopefully from MBAM) please address this issue and explain this shortcoming.