| All comments about mcshield.exe: |
 | It's On-Access Scanner service, by Network Associates, Inc. (VirusScan Enterprise) See also: Link Bendover-X |
 | Part of McAfee VirusScan ASaP (corporate virus scanner) bhlang |
| Better off with it than without it, as it will scan for malevolent controls and viruses. See also: Link Lord Shitzu |
 | This file runs as a service and uses lots of processor time even when the active virus scan is disabled. It's not worth it. grandaddydan |
| McAfee VirusScan |
| This file is required by McAfee to run live, real time AV shiedling - as opposed to running periodic or scheduled manually. TuneUp Utilities 2004 tags mcshield.exe as the only file - on a brand new high-end XP box - which uses unusually high resources. See also: Link Doc |
| McAfee OnScan Internet checking process. If your antivirus solution is McAfee, keep it the way it is. Alex Fernandez |
 | Mcafee Anti-virus |
| When the "NT On Access Scanner Service...." error comes up McAfee AntiVirus disables. Talk about out of the pot & into the fire!!! Lorraine Ampofo |
| Somehow blocks outgoing mail from echange server 5.5. Busy checking the MCShield configuration.... - To let mail go out, simply stop the MCshield service. I'm running Exchange Server 5.5 on Win NT4.0, servie Pack 6 |
| NAI Anti Virus |
| This is part of McAfee Virus Scan. Mcshield.exe constantly monitors your computer's running processes, accessed file and registry to detect virus activity. It is one of the core components to the virus protection offered by the McAfee virus scanning software and should not be stopped. If it is stopped your computer will not be protected from viruses. Mcshield.exe is flagged as a system process and does not appear to be a security risk. However, removing McAfee Shield may adversly impact your system. DEEPWOODS |
| On my machine at work. It can lock up your machine for 20 to 30 seconds at a time several times an hour. I wouldn't recommend it. jv30344 |
| Part of McAfee virus scan |
| It Must be used to keep Virus Protection Updated but can be a bit heavy and use more space than needed. I keep mine on and suffer the speed for the security.. Worth checking See also: Link George Malvar |
| McShield.exe does more than slow me down. It completely disables my ability to do backups of an external drive with Acronis TrueImage. Only when I installed the latest version of McA did this begin, and it is driving me crazy. Also causes partition problems in my external drives, so that they are not recognized, from time to time. It has got to go, and I will either use on-demand McA or switch entirely to F-Prot (which has found viruses that McA missed from time to time anyway). M Naylor |
| Even if I have disabled on-access scan, this process still scans my incoming files as I download cygwin packages from the web, eating 50%+ of my CPU power. I'm getting rid of this stupid software. smalltalk |
 | when I place the mouse over the icon, is says "Downloading 59% updates" and it's been over 4 and half hours doing this. It must be updating the Mcafee AV software which Dell said was current Allen Lindaas from MSP |
 | it seems to conflict with mirosofts new beta anti spyware or rather the antispyware is conflicting with mcshield, my processes runs near 100% when they are both running. mosier40823 |
| Why does it show that it is able to record keyboard inputs??? Does this mean mine has a virus? Dave |
| Essential part of McAfee. Don't kill it. Antivirus doesn't work correctly without it Dave |
| integral part of Anti-Virus software from McAfee desmo |
| If you dont need virus in your system keep this Rams |
| McAfee virus scan client service |
| mcShield used up so much resources, I could not ever surf the web, or do anything! It even intermittantly stopped my mouse from moving (VERY ANNOYING). It continued to eat over50% of processes. Note: Everything was fine for about a month, then all of the sudden BAM, mcshield.exe made my ps un-usable Mike B |
| Every time I start my PC I get this messsage. This is since I downloaded the latest version of McAfee from AOL. |
| It does take a lot of resources even when scanning disable. I remove and install once a month to scan and keep performance up Gramon |
| Everytime I access my disk or our company network, this process pegs my CPU. It is having a major impact on my productivity. I would remove the feature of McAfee and scan manually often. JackC |
| this wasn't happening until I updated Windows RB |
| This is 'legitimate' spyware... your company installs and controls it, not the user of the PC. And it periodically takes over the machine for a couple of minutes, allowing nothing else to function. Mr. Cranky |
| It keeps you safe from virusses but uses to much processor power abel tasman |
| Can I delete this without compromising my security? stentipede |
| In a corp. environment it slows you to a crawl. My XP acts like an old 286 machine. Production impacts are not seen as important to the company. Ticked Off user |
| Highly recommended that you delete this file as soon as you see it Mech U |
| McAfee.com privacy service is part of McAfee internet suite Shalianahe |
| Every Saturday afternoon, it effectively renders my pc useless by needlessly taking up 75-90% of cpu. After this subsciption is over, I will NEVER purchase another McAfee product. Tyrone |
| McAfee virusscanner - uses a lot of CPU power I do not recommend it ! Klaus |
| Essential but what a nuisance. It hogs resources for 20s or so at startup. |
| Microsoft anti spyware is the conflicting party. even when turned off it keeps on using processor time in combination with mcaffee. uninstall the useless microshaft program and your problems are over johnnie |
| This file slows down the compute a lot........ |
| AOL's MC Afee installes this file and uses up huge amounts of processor resources. I am going to uninstall MC Afee and use SYmantec. On older computers this almost entirely kills the machine. Madmaven |
| Uses a great deal of processer (up to 35% at times), but because of virus threats, afraid to do without it. FBYJ |
| Is integral part of realtime protection but shur is a resource hog Rambo 45 |
| An essential part of McAfee Security Software Alex |
| That it's part of McAfee's Antivirus package and uses up 100% of my CPU when scheduled scan is running. Even when scheduled scan isn't running it'll be responsible for intermittently slowing or freezing apps and mouse. A royal pain. Andymatt |
| my computer hangs when i try to shut it down since i installed this software Gib |
| The protection McAfee provides is not worth the CPU slowdown. I have a 3.4ghz 1gbRAM 256mbGPU and it still slows down my computer... simply, this is legal spyware Bobby Bonanza |
| It is as bad as any virus it can remove - get rid of this product AFTER you install another antiVrirus software agent. paulg |
| It completely freezes up my system on every start-up. I recommend anything else but Mcafee. Zulu1 |
| While I don't believe it to be dangerous, it is annoying when it uses so much of my CPU's resources. If it were on all the time, I would definitely disable/remove it. Anon |
| This process ran my CPU at 100% and stopped me from even using my computer. While it may be important to keep this program going it is more important to have my computer work. I am switching to another anti-virus as this product is useless to me at this time. Bobway |
| mcsheild is defenatly annoying Just try using your disk clean up utillity and whatch the cpu usage on the task manager... danhollywood |
| MCShield (Anti)Virus - Has Same Effects On CPU as Most Spyware - Uninstall it and replace it with another anti-virus scanner See also: Link Jan Brady |
| This is crap, it conflitcs with my games causing the frame rate to be slow and some games will not even play, Id go with AVG Lee |
| This process hangs my machine with increased annoyance - I've done research and there seems to be no known problems posted with McAfee of Microsoft. Total mystery and very annoying, currently looking for new product that will not hang the system. primrose |
| Found out about this process when my computer crashed over and over hopelessly. I need my computer to teach a video game class, and I downloaded an online game. After that McShield froze my computer over and over. What a freaking hassle. What's wrong with manual scans like the good ole' days? |
| Disabling On-Access Scan on both Read and Write is a bad idea. Instead consider configuring scanning exclusions. Also remember that a program that indexes files on your HDD (think Google Desktop) is going to trigger lots of On Access scans. ThsGuyRightHere |
| Even i exits out of Mc Afee, It takes over my cpu with 100% usage. It crashes my comp so often. dreamer |
| I agree that it seems to have happened ever since Windows changed to the new data defender. My computer is continually running up 59 to 100% even when idling. Did not do this before the change -- usually idles at 3-12%. Very annoying and the fan is almost constantly running. mac56soup |
| We are required to use McAfee at work and are denied rights to disable it. As a result, opening files over a network connection is a draconian effort. Chuck |
| McAfee process of some sort, takes up lots of processing time. Don't know why. Very annoying. Wish I could delete it without compromising user's security. Why can't McAfee come up with decent anti-virus software? Is always interfering with something... Tiffany |
| Important part of McAfee security package dolphin |
| McAfee - can slow PC down while it runs yourmom |
| Just put nod32 on your computer, its light and offers the same protection xxmmdxx |
| mshield.exe often freezes the whole system. after killing this process the pc continues working fine. same problem with games. so i always kill it before playing. |
| I did a chat session with McAfee support after having a problem with mcshield hogging all my cpu time for extended periods of time. The guy had me clear out all of my junk files. I don't know if this will really do anything yet. Maybe I should remove all of my programs, clear out all of my files, and stop surfing the internet. Maybe then mcshield will be happy. Matt |
| MCSHIELD.EXE McAfee process that sucks back way to much processig power very hard to turn off or disable very poor coding for Antivirus. Stick to Trend or CA G |
| Mcafee virus scan (will slow down your machine and sometimes freeze your it) Vincent |
| rediculous. almost as bad as having a virus. when it scans, which it does constantly, it slows down the pc almost to the extent of a virus infection. this is a no-go jester |
| For home users (and gamers) uninstall it and use a different anti-virus...also you might have done a scan from another program and found an unidentified program that McAfee has installed on your computer called "scriptproxy" this might as well be the program we are talking about now, it has the same effect of high protection but slower speed, McAfee has known of this for some time now but hasnt done a thing to fix it! See also: Link Revan |
| I agree that it seems to have happened ever since Windows changed to the new data defender. My computer is continually running up 59 to 100% even when idling. Did not do this before the change -- usually idles at 3-12%. Very annoying and the fan is almost constantly running. miki |
| The comment about Google Desktop indexing triggerinsg constant McShield activity is right on. My computer ground almost to a halt with Mcshield churning away -so killed Google desktop - problem solved! Ross Ulmer |
| It completely shuts down my laptop, which becomes totally unresponsive to any I/O. I'm ready to disable it, if I can figure out how. JRB |
| mcshield.exe to Uncountable with java.exe sachin |
| Extremely poorly written code. Does not know the difference between actually reading a file and reading the meta data on a file. If it was written more intelligently it would not use so much CPU. I highly recommend you buy some other AV SW. It is more than a bit ironic that this software is more of a virus than what it is protecting you against. The company could care less, by the way. Enrico |
| RAM Usage 50 MBytes = Resource Pig. Although it doesn't really have much effect on a 3.2GHz CPU 2GB RAM 128MB Video, I always hear the CPU working hard. Tried to kill it... doing so crashed the PC. Amazing no?! Your Highness |
| 50 MBytes RAM Usage, 00 CPU Usage? Doesn't have much effect on a 3.2GHz CPU 2GB RAM 128 Video but I always hear the cpu working. Your Highness |
| It uses Lots of CPU. Slow down my PC Raj |
| It is a process with high priority, occupy significant process time. I would not recommend to use this product. dave |
| Whenever this process starts the computer slows to a crawl, music gets jittery other programs take forever to load, and my computer will not shut down without disconnecting power. This process is more of a virus that a virus. A search for this infamous program(McShield.exe results in nothing found...can't find it on my computer anywhere! iONic |
| Mcshield.exe consume 100% of CPU when GoogleDesktop.exe is running, and in 10 minutes the CPU cooler of my notebook become very very hot. And turn the computer unusable at this moments. Santiago Ernesto |
| Essential part of McAfee Antivirus, UNLESS it's an imposter.. See also: Link XTS |
| This is the worst antivirus program I have ever had the misfortune to have it install on my PC. All the things about eating up resources and generating computer freezes: yeah, all true. This is the main reason why I have uninstalled it. Simply crap. Seth_lex |
| this thing is anoying, it consumes 100% of a 4gig memery laptop, why, how ,who, its so annoying nicholas |
| Starts at boot, runs in the background, can be disabled after boot if you're in an otherwise virus protected environment (officespace). Constant scanning is only necessary if you up and download files constantly or your email is full of junk. ignatio |
| Major Resource Hog but needed if you run McAfee as your Real time Scanner |
| Mchshiled.exe. right now im at work and we rely heavily on our computers with the multiple applications that we use at once. this scan is slowing down our whole entire network at this moment. what a shame! Phillip |
| MacAffee Sucks big time, my system is slower now. Nortons is the best Fustrated |
| consumes processor resources |
| Essential part of McAfee Antivirus Helix |
| Necessary part of McAffee Hamm |
| it's not malevolent but for a "background process" it takes a hell of a lot of resources... 114,000k I mean come on... that's more than iTunes or AutoCAD or Sketchup... the only program I use regularly that uses more resources is Revit. irritated corp user |
| Had to ditch Norton due to resource hogging; now I see McAfee's doing the same thing. They must test these products on quad core machines... ironic |
| Spyware doctor block mcshield.exe because it scan as backdoor.bandok |
| Irritatingly Slows Compaq down. Yesterday, Spyware Doctor has started to think its a Bacdoor Bandok trojan! Noelma Shaw |
| Hogs CPU nearly 100% |
| why on earth this exe has been generated by the company. It is using precious recources of our PC Pankaj Kumar |
| It's using 203,304k memory and my fan won't shut off! Timmy |
| This can be termed as "necessary evil process" that always runs in the background. It generally doesnt effect the performance of the system if you are working with normal windows applications but can seriously impact the performance if you are using compex applications like games. You can come out of this problem by manually terminating the process in task manager while running this kind of applications. Purnakiran |
| this process scans other process activity for virus lke patterns so if your other processes do stuff it checks up on them. its protected from priority changes so I reccomend setting explorer.exe to real time and other used apps to high priority otherwise mcaffee will slow them down tremendously. anonymous |
| This process slows down the PC and consumes lot of memory space. Nitin |
| it is using 4 times the amount of virtual memery as firefox does. that is only 1 program out of mcafee. it me |
| Part Of McAfee Security Center Package See also: Link Fahad Alsaadi |
| Completely froze up my laptop after I switched windows firewall back on. it ran all night where a friend said it was carrying out updates. Today it is still hogging 99-100% of the CPU, intermittently breaking to 0 for a few seconds to allow me to get my hopes up. Work laptop, can't avoid it. Can't use the laptop either! If this is supposed to protect my computer....it's definitely done that!!! Nothing and no-one is getting any processing time out of that for sure!! RJ |
| the mcsheild exe is infected need to disinfect it |
| Corporate has this running every ten minutes on my machine, and it takes up 99% of resources. Personally, I think I'd prefer a virus. abeck |
| Locks up machine for 20-30 seconds or longer. Sometimes completely disables the machine and reboot is required. Too much of a resource hog to be useful, but the IT department requires that it be operating. Personally, I'd prefer to have a virus. Very Frustrated |
| Anti virus Govinda |
| Mine randomly starts up and maxes out my hdd for about an hour or so. CPU isn't too bad at 15% butsill kills PC with no disk access. HummerBoy |
| This is a program from McAfee and it sucks big time. I currse the day I bought it .!!! P.o. Mcafee user |
| McAfee and mcshield ate a lot of space on my older computer. This makes all of my work run at a snails pace. I agree that this security suite, through Cox, is as bad as the viruses it protects against. Dave |
| When i first got my computer, somewhere I was instructed to disable windows defender, since the new scanner was to take over the job. I think I got the info from my comcast ISP Who provided the complimentary software. Charles Story |
| slows entire machine to a crawl jrob |
| Its fine, but can be a resouce hog. |
| Crap, sometimes a second Mcshield service starts up and take 50% CPU. Jameson |
| Consumes lots of memory usage and can not be terminated. Kabatha |
| This file is great. Always at the top of my processes. McAfeeMan |
| after remove mcshield.exe, my computer go back to work jerry lee |
| Consumes 97% cpu when we try to use our system. Having a virus makes the system useless - so does this product from mcafee! me |
| it uses up almost 90% of the CPU and seems to be programed for certain times of the day - like at 5 pm - I don't like Norton either blocks most of your attachments - any other type of AV out there that works at protecting you but doesn't disable your computer? Gatorrocker |
| It is the McAfee Anti Virus program. You can customize your security suite as you like. If you don't want it interupting you turn off all the automatic scans. The only scan I allow it to do regularly is on boot and on windows start. Once it's done it quiets down and sits there like a good gaurd dog. |
| on a fresh xp sp3 and still yet to add patches, mcshield seems ok except I see it somehow stopped and restarted some 10 mins later and nothing in the event log tends to explain why (no updating or reboots during that time, etc.). Only noticed it when oddly I heard the windows critical stop wav (for no reason as the pc was idle then). hmm. wguru |
| Total resource hog which can be replaced by much faster programs with higher detection rates. Junk it and look at this for a replacement See also: Link McVirusScanner |
| McAfee Antivirus -- Works, but only because it starves out any CPU cycles a virus might have run on |
| Yes, as Gatorrocker said, it uses up 90% of the CPU...slows everything else up, so much that it's headache-inducing! I'd suggest switching to NOD-32 before putting up with damned McShield!!! McShield...McAfee too...I tried to renew my McAfee through Cox, and could not...for what reason, I have NO idea...that's why I switched to NOD-32, which I need to (and will gladly) renew. Based on my experiences, I'd have to suggest, do NOT fool around with McAfee OR McShield, which apparently go hand in hand. My dad uses NOD-32 on his desktop computer, and it's never given him (or me) any problems. Louise |
| Consumes a lot of Computer's resources Stormvirus |
| McAfee's products are inferior CPU hogs. My company made a foolish corporate decision to install McAfee on all workstations. Of the various anti-virus packages I've used, Eset's NOD32 is by far the best. Nat |
| i had the same problem one of my system, i actually changed RAM, and it is working fine. Raja |
| it is better to have virus than this..i don't know why it eating all resources if no virus found in my m/c firefox |
| Without it running McAfee if severly hindered in the protection it can provide for you PC. Only uses 50k of bytes of memory for me,hardly an impact for me, and CPU usage is almost none. M Harris |
| It sure uses alot of resourses. On my work PC it takes a nice 178 000k of memory, and this PC was top notch 10 years ago. Pretty much makes your PC unusable. Christ sakes |
| act more than a virus, consume a lot of processor usage pasto |
| This file is related to McFee antiviruse but it increase starting time of computer Mohit Luthra |
| After those bad comments about the mcshield .exe that slows down drastically the speed of the computers McAffe is doing something to be in the level of NORTON anitivirus? Guillermo |
| It's the McAfee anti-virus. It's VERY annoying, because if you want to play any games, or do work, your computer WILL slow down severly. Me, I removed it. |
| Eats up ridiculous amounts of memory on my computer. Completely stops me from working multiple times a day. Sadly, my whole company runs McAfee and "normal" employees don't have the right to end mcshield.exe. I will never use a McAfee product on my home computer. Heck, I use Avira Free at home and it is way better than this. YouMadBro? |
| Mcafee slows my computer to a crawl, rendering it next to useless. The only reason I use it is because it is my company's antivirus software. If I had a choice I would use ANYTHING else other than Mcafee. Impact to my work productivity is palpable, taking over an hour to do tasks that should only take 10-15 minutes at most. My bosses don't care and it impacts my performance reviews. As companies like Norton can make even more effective anti-virus software that never impacts system performance, it confuses me that Mcafee is completely unable to make a useable product. Mcafee Crashware |
| Needed for McAfee but better options are out there. SDavis |
| I have several computers at home, some are running on Pentium / 2.4GHz using Windows XP are having the same problem with CPU usage that caused by the latest version of McA anti-virus software (50% to 99% of CPU usage). However, other computers of mine are running on Windows Vista or Windows 7 do not have any CPU speed's issue with this McA anti-virus software (only 1% to 3% of CPU usage). fyi |
| This file Problem, lot of memory space used. Nihil S |
| 10 minutes after I start my computer, everytime McShield takes up all CPU for about 2 minutes, extremely annoying. Charlie |
| It's a virus- stay away. Best site to get rid of it: See also: Link Deborah |
| This product requires careful configuration to ensure that unnecessary scanning is not taking place - from the apocryphal reports above, people just haven't got the exceptions right. All AV must scan for potential danger and McAfee is pretty good in this area. There are better personal products though - McAfee excels in Enterprise environments for manageability See also: Link AVguru |
| When McAfee's real time scanning is running my PC is slowed to crawl. I'm shutting it off, as it's worse than any virus I've ever had. Railwalker |
| It causes massive server slow downs in a corporate enviroment, renders most servers totally useless for many minutes at a time. I have no idea why so many corporations use this crappy product even after they find out how terrible it is. joe |
| It was using up to 90% of my cpu. I uninstalled McAfee, and my computer got the pep back in its step. Chris |
| Seems like I've finally found the cause of my slow computer (ok, it is 7 yrs old). I "upgraded" last month from an existing version of McAf. to the McAf Total Protection suite - wrong move. Disk drive stays on for long periods, especially 2 hours after startup; Mcshield takes up 120,000+K and cycles constantly from 1 to 12 cpu; firstace |
| Have spent 10 days try trying to resolve high McShield cpu usage. One McAfee chat seemed interested in helping and tried helping. Problem wasn't solved. Second McAfee chat was waste of time - tech basically said problem was mine, not theres. If so why so many posts back to 2005 concerning same problem. bc |
| I had the same problem as many others here with mcshield.exe (McAfee on-access virus scanner) using 30 to 50% of my CPU much of the time. There are probably a number of similar causes out there but after much investigation I found my problem was caused by mcshield.exe using 50% CPU while monitoring the much lower level of activity (average 1%) of a useful free program called Rapport (sponsored by the banks I believe) which I installed to prevent key logging, theft of bank account details etc. For now I would rather be careful about where I enter my bank details than do without the virus protection I have paid for, so I uninstalled Rapport and immediately my fan went quiet again and my resting CPU went down to 3%. Alan |
| mcshield.exe causes the CPU to run non-stop at high percentage and I've experienced shut down due to temperature. A bad virus shileding strategy. This kind of strategy is good at the ISP end and not at the end user. Dolla$ |
| Part of BT netprotect/macafee - complete pants! Wish I had a Mac! |
| Is part of McAfee and in my case it dose not slow my computer ( Laptop Dell Latitude E6420 - 4 Gb of RAM CPU Core i5-2540M @ 2.60 Ghz) It is good antivirus Florin |
| this one occupies very high CPU usage about 95-100% making all other programs non-responsive. McAfee should better improve their scanning mechanisms... not gud one to use at all... Nagaraj |
| It was using about 50% of my CPU. I removed Rapport (which is sponsored by the banks) and n0w usage has dropped right back Knibbsy |
| The file is safe and essential for up-to-the-munute scanning. However, McAfee is generations behind their "State of the Art" claims in that they can't build a similar program that doesn't hog 70-80+% of cpu capacity. Mcshield.exe freezes websites, emails, uploads, downloads, and interferes with download managers because it is so cumbersome and internally complex that it can't do its job without tripping over its own programming code. It's true that you're better off with it than without it, but in my view, you're infinitely better off with a different AV software, altogether. Bohemian |
| The problem I'm having is that McShield.exe begins it's mem consumption when I use Pandora and Firefox, as if it does not like those programs and will keep monitoring it thus causing mem problems. ACH |
| Has known issues on some PCs, see the McAfee support page for details of regular 100% CPU usage going back years. McAfee obviously don't care about their customers. I have work PCs that it's been installed on recently and it has seriously degraded their performance. John |
| It keeps your computer protected at sacrifice to 60-95% of your cpu power constantly. very annoying because the fan on my pc is slow so it keeps overheating. Ricky |
| Well known McAffee issue. Better change for different antivirus. Krzys |
| my problem started when I installed Rapport. I thank the person who has pointed out that removing Rapport solves the problem. It was big, up to 95% of a two core machine paris |
| I've turned of scheduled scans but it still takes over my CPU when it wants to. I hate the program but am scared to delete it. Growltiger |
| slowing down pc jerker |
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