uTorrent stops responding on Vista!

[ocleo]

Hi,

Would greatly appreciate if someone can troubleshoot my problem please.

I have uTorrent 1.7.2 installed on Vista and it stops responding and freezes instantly. The only way it wouldn't freeze is when I open uTorrent and dont use any other programs, by just leaving uTorrent window open. If I open any other program or use something simple as msn messenger the uTorrent will stop responding completely.

I don't know what the problem could be, any advices?

Thanks,

Leo

[DreadWingKnight]

What antivirus, firewall and anti-spyware programs do you have?

[ocleo]

I have Norton AntiVirus and Windows Firewall both active.

Thanks

[ajones81]

Do you have exceptions set in both for uTorrent?

Can you try temporarily disabling Windows Firewall and if that doesn't work, uninstalling NAV (which is a resource hog anyway) and then checking?

[ocleo]

After uninstaling Norton Antivirus uTorrent works flawlessly without any problems. I have Windows Firewall and uTorrents is included in Exception!

Many thanks for your insight.

Although it raises a question wether there should be AntiVirus program installed on a computer or not??

[Ultima]

If you're careful about what you download or what sites you visit (common sense ), then an antivirus isn't absolutely necessary. Even still, nobody's perfect, and people can screw up sometimes, so yeah, installing one would be a good idea.

The better question would be which antivirus to use. Kaspersky and NOD32 are among the highest rated antivirus products, but YMMV, as some people have problems with them where others don't.

[ajones81]

Yup, I can confirm that NOD32 works flawlessly for me (I junked NAV in 2005 itself when it started to make my latest machine seem to be no better than the 286 I started off with! Ok, it wasn't that bad but still... )

Of course, some people have had problems with NOD32 too so one can never make any blanket statements. All I can say is, check it out yourself and if it works, enjoy!

[Switeck]

I run system diagnostic tools regularly, they spot lots of things on my system...I just sort out which ones I want and give the rest the boot!

Stuff like:

HijackThis!

Process Explorer

TCP View

Spybot Seek and Destroy (updated regularly!)

Anything that slips by all that I can sometimes spot via searches for new files on my hard drive/s. A totally stealth virus or rootkit might get by me, but I'd probably still notice a system slowdown or "strange incoming/outgoing connections" in my router logs.

...and a format + reinstall probably wouldn't be far behind if it was more than slightly impacting my system.

[ajones81]

Switeck, I use pretty much the same utilities that you do, though I also use PC Tools Spyware Doctor v4.1 (5.x sucks!) to back up Spybot SnD. Process Explorer, Process Monitor etc. are all wonderful tools too. In fact, most of the Sysinternals tools are pretty cool and it's good to note that being bought up by MS didn't mess with their good work.

Finally though, one can have all these and more besides installed on one's system and still get infected. Also, most people seem to think that just having these tools installed is enough but forget about regular in-depth scans and, most importantly, updates and patches!

It all boils down to how aware and proactive a user is - as Ultima put it so well, an ounce of common sense goes a long way indeed!

P.S. I see you've mentioned format+reinstall... Unfortunately I've seen a lot of people use it as some sort of magic bullet - if anything's out of whack, format+reinstall. It really irritates me - why use a sledgehammer when a scalpel will do the trick faster and cleaner most of the time? Also, the format+reinstall process is a temporary fix at best for a lot of people. If they do the same stupid things on the net etc., how long will it be before they need to format+reinstall all over again?