Virus in 'ProTools M-Powered.exe' file! What do I do?

[AndersH]

I have tried removing ProTools and reinstalling it several times. Every time I reinstall it, a virus alert comes up saying there is a virus in the 'ProTools M-Powered.exe' file. It won't let me open ProTools. It moves the 'ProTools M-Powered.exe' file to the virus vault and it can not be used or accessed! What do I do?
It is ProTools M-Powered 7.1 on Windows XP Home Edition. I'm running the newest free AVG virus program.
Thanks.

[ondruspat]

...shut off your anti-virus software...
...it's recommended to be shut off when your running PT anyway

[QuikDraw]

I'm not a big fan of AVG. It's given me false alerts and completely missed actual threats in the past.

My bigger concern is where did you get your PT M-Powered installer from? If it's on genuine Avid/Digidesign installation media then I would be pretty sure that the installer is virus free. From any other source it's questionable. Even a download from Avid's site can be infected on the way to your computer if you have a virus already.

Was this a running PT M-Powered setup that has recently started behaving this way? If that's the case you likely do have a virus or some kind of malware infecting your system.

The only reliable way I have ever seen for getting rid of any kind of infection is a clean format of the OS drive and reinstall, preferably from a known good drive image with all your stuff installed.

[AndersH]

Thanks for your replies.

I tried disabling AVG and reinstalled ProTools.
When launching PT it said something like: "A driver install error has been detected. Protools will launch but might be slow to start recording."
At least it started and seemed to work, but I did not try to work in Protools to see how slow it was.

I closed ProTools and enabled AVG again. When trying to launch Protools now it says (like before): "Windows could not get access to the file. You might not have the necessary rights to access the element."
AVG keeps saying "Threat detected" and wants to put the 'ProTools M-Powered.exe' file in the virus vault. I can't open it when AVG is enabled.

So I'm stuck here... Any help?


And to answer this question:

Originally Posted by QuikDraw

Was this a running PT M-Powered setup that has recently started behaving this way? If that's the case you likely do have a virus or some kind of malware infecting your system.

Yes, I have been using this Protools setup for quite a while. I started with PT 6.8 and later updated to 7.1 which has been working for the last four years, so it seems a bit strange.

[AndersH]

Any suggestions?

[ribasu]

im having the exact same problem with the exact error message. i am also running Mpowered 7.1. and i also have AVG anti virus. this happened about a week ago. keeps wanting to move the .exe file to my virus vault. ive gone crazy trying to get rid of the problem. i even did a fresh re-install of windows and the problem still occurred. of course, when i uninstall AVG i have no problems running pro-tools. ive never had this problem before running AVG and pro tools at the same time. im now wondering if an AVG update may have caused the problem. this sucks cuz i dont want to have to uninstall my anti virus to fix the problem.

[Greg B]

Sorry to see this happen to anybody else, but I'm glad I'm not alone. AVG began attacking my installation of PT, and that's after 5 years of co-existence. I've run at least 4 anti-virus programs looking for problems, but don't find any.

My problem also began on the 8th.

What I've done in the interem is reinstall PT (no solution), uninstall and reinstall AVG (no solution).

I thought my answer for the moment is to add the Digidesign, Waves, and other affected paths to the Tools/Advanced/Excluded items, and remembered to include directio.dll. But that's not working right this second.

Going to Tool/Advanced/Temporarily Disable is working, but there's a 15 minute time limit on that.

We need to contact AVG and apprise them of this problem.
Thanks,
Greg

[Greg B]

You can go to Components/Resident Shield and disable resident shield.

Also here's the link to report a false positive to AVG.
http://samplesubmit.avg.com/us-en/false-detection

[AndersH]

Originally Posted by Greg B

You can go to Components/Resident Shield and disable resident shield.

Also here's the link to report a false positive to AVG.
http://samplesubmit.avg.com/us-en/false-detection

Nice to hear I'm not the only one.

I tried turning off the resident shield and it works now after reinstalling PT and the M-Audio drivers.

Thanks!

I hope AVG/PT get it fixed..

[ribasu]

hey guys check out this video. may help solve the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCj16VDyXoY