Adaware making windows 7 slow

[jotazombie 1]

Hello, 

My os is windows 7 professional 64 bits and I use Adaware 12 (12.4.930.11587) Pro version. 

I'm experiencing some issues when I open folders. I went to Microsoft support forum first and one of their recommendations was to check how it works if I disable the antivirus and in my case when I did that the folder was working fine again, also someone in the MS forum said that it was a known issue from Adaware so now I'm asking to you.  

The issue is that windows explorer is working pretty slow, when I open any folder at first I see just a few files (icons) or even none of them and then gradually they start to show up one by one of few at a time while the green loading bar at the folder address is filling. Depending on how big the folder is this could take even some minutes to be able to see all the files there, and it happens as I said with any folder like if adaware was scanning every single file everytime I open a folder. This also makes some softwares to work slow such as a music player when I try to open a folder with music files from the software it also at first shows empty folders.

I think same issue has affected PC booting since I've noticed the required time has increased but I didn't make tests on this matter with and without adaware.

I guess the easy way would be just remove Adaware and buy some other antivirus but despite this issue I was always happy with Adaware since the version 10 I even have it on 2 other computers (with windows 10 and no performance issues) so I would prefer to get a fix rather than just buying another antivirus. 

[CeciliaB 481]

Hi Jotazombie,

Note that since you've paid for adaware antivirus you can contact the support team, instead of this forum with volunteers. You can select a menu item in the program to contact support.

Have you tried to uninstall adaware antivirus, restart the computer, run the removal tool and then restart the computer before installing adaware antivirus again?
Remember to have your license key available before uninstalling the program.

Removal tool: https://www.adaware.com/removal-tool

[jotazombie 1]

Ok, I didn't tried the removal tool but I'll contact them there before doing that and if I get some fix I'll try to post it here so it could be useful for others. Thanks

[CeciliaB 481]

5 minutes ago, jotazombie said:

if I get some fix I'll try to post it here so it could be useful for others. Thanks

You're welcome :)

We really like if you can post the solution.

[jotazombie 1]

Hi Cecilia,

I got a couple back and forward emails with Charlie from support and he finally have sent me back to this forum to try to find a solution (no complain about the guy tho). He told me to try the classic software repair via control panel which I did but nothing really changed, then I told him you recommended me of using the removal tool, he told me to do that but that didn't solved the issues neither. 

But now I know for sure, after using the removal tool and doing some tests, that without the antivirus installed the pc works fine, I don't get missing files icons on folders, the green loading bar at the folders address is almost instantly full loaded, I don't have slow downs when copy/paste or moving files to another folder or subfolder. And as I told to Charlie I even discovered another issues that I didn't thought is has something to do with the antivirus: I use a wacom tablet since quite a while and at some point (not sure when but not too long ago) every time I turn on my computer I got a warning message saying that the wacom tablet service is not working. Since this happens every single time I even created a shortcut to services on the windows taskbar so I can go there and restart the wacom service then the wacom app is launched and the hotkeys and that are working fine again. But in the time I was testing the computer without antivirus I didn't have this issues the wacom app was launched by itself when windows is loaded without the need of restarting the service, I thought that was a wacom issue but I guess somehow this actually has something to do with adaware. Another thing that I noticed (without antivirus) is that all the files in different softwares (photoshop, clip studio paint, foobar200,..., even Microsoft Excel) are loaded noticeably faster. E.g. in photoshop (not always but pretty often) it happens that when I tried to open a file directly from the folder (with ot without the software previously loaded) I got that green loading bar at the folder address and the file didn't open until that bar is loaded which sometime takes around 30 sec to open a 2mb file, but during the time I tested without antivirus all the files (even large ones or dragging several files at the same time) was opening pretty much instantly, that's another thing I didn't thought it could have something to do with adaware but it seems it has. 

I'm aware this doesn't seems to be something easy to solve, I guess I will give it some days to see if something changes but if you have any idea of something else I could try it would be appreciated. 

Even if it gets to the point I have to change the antivirus software I appreciate that you and Charlie replied pretty fast and willing to help. 

[CeciliaB 481]

Hi Jotazombie,

Unfortunately my contact person in the Q&A team says that this behaviour is common in old and slow computers and since your computer is running Windows 7 we think that it's one of those. If you can upgrade your computer with an SSD for Windows, it would be noticeably faster and adaware antivirus wouldn't slow it down that much.

[jotazombie 1]

OK, thanks for trying to solve this, as I mentioned in the first message I've 2 other computers with win 10, that one is not my main one and I don't plan to do individual hardware upgrade on it, it's just that still works and can be used (it's used mostly by my couple) and since it worked pretty fine when I removed adaware I guess I'll try some other antivirus before discarding it. 

Of course no regrets about adaware or any of you guys you was pretty nice, I'll still be buying licenses for the other computers. 

Thanks again

[CeciliaB 481]

You're welcome

I understand that you aren't interested in upgrading that computer, and I wish you good luck with another antivirus program.

[specopsbarton 6]

jotazombie I have the same problem and unfortunately from a very long time

also I wrote about it in one of my topics long time ago, and unfortunately no fix to this day

Edited October 2, 2018 by specopsbarton

[jotazombie 1]

I've found an option that for now it works better on that matter (I'm not going to advertise another antivirus here but I guess I can PM if anyone ask), also before I tried another antivirus I found that some application that started to slow down with Adaware works better when I added those paths on the exclusion list also excluding some specific extensions. And in case some other guy has the same issue with the wacom tablet I also tried (before remove Adaware) to uninstall the wacom driver, reboot pc, then stop adaware and then install the wacom driver again, after doing that I didn't have problems with lag in photoshop, also in some cases when I got the message saying that the wacom driver wasn't working I did the same, stop Adaware then restart the service (via windows services) and it was working fine again. But unfortunately I couldn't find a fix or workaround for the general slow down on the folders, even if it works stopping the real time protection it doesn't have too much sense to work with a paid antivirus stopped to make things faster. Now I've to say I didn't tried and don't know if same thing happens with the free version.        

[Julio 2]

Thanks for redirecting my question to this thread Cecilia. (For other viewers, I was looking for a fix for Windows 7 File Explorer that runs very slow after installing Adaware Pro) While an older computer, it is still fast with an SSD, 64-bit, 2.3 GHz Quad core AMD system with 6 GB RAM. The rest of my software runs fine and Explorer was very fast prior to running Adaware. As I just upgraded to Pro, I'll contact support as you suggest, 

[romulusnr 0]

Windows 7 user here having the notorious slow folder problem. The problem is directly related to Real Time Protection. If you disable Real Time Protection, the slowness issue disappears.

I agree with jota that I don't want to use software that forces me to upgrade the computer, it isn't really a cheap thing to do and a pain to migrate everything over as well. The software should be properly optimized for performance and not bog down the machine. 

[CeciliaB 481]

9 hours ago, romulusnr said:

Windows 7 user here having the notorious slow folder problem. The problem is directly related to Real Time Protection. If you disable Real Time Protection, the slowness issue disappears.

I agree with jota that I don't want to use software that forces me to upgrade the computer, it isn't really a cheap thing to do and a pain to migrate everything over as well. The software should be properly optimized for performance and not bog down the machine. 

Hi romulusnr,

I'm sorry, but it's also important for antivirus companies to keep the user's computers safe and today that's impossible with Windows 7 since it contains too many known vulnerabilities.