Disabled Anti-Virus and Things Improved Dramatically

[Chowdahead]

I have disabled my anti-virus software until ATX fixes this year's disastrous program. So far, performance on the server has increased by about 80-90% since disabling the anti-virus. Performance has increased about 50% on the workstation where anti-virus was also disabled.

It's a risk but I am losing customers left and right because each return is taking me an extra 30-40% more time to complete becasue of the frequent crashes and sluggish performance. Yesterday 2 walkins walked out of my office because I was taking so long to get a return completed. The program crashed once during prep and then crashed when I went to print. When I launched the program the ATX splash screen displayed for a full 7 minutes before loading! Saving the return takes 20 seconds each time I pressed save! 1 out of 5 print jobs caused the program to crash.

Since disabling antivirus this has all gone away, although it did crash once on ther server when saving , and it hung while printing, but this was twice in 4 hours compared to 5 times an hour before. Performance is almost on-par with last year's program with the anti-virus disabled. We use Avast by the way.

It seems the anti-virus is interfering with the program's ability to operate. I'm assuming this is ATX's fault. Perhaps they didn't code the software properly so anti-virus software wouldn't interfere. There is supposed to be a remedy in the next update this week according to the Blog.

In the meantime, we are limiting our web surfing to just news sites andcertain safe sites (like this one). Firewall is still active. I just hope it's not too late to salvage this tax season.

[Eric]

I'd be curious to know if Microsoft Security Essentials interferes with the software as well. Avast is great software, but it would be nice to have some form of protection running until you can turn Avast back on.

[Margaret CPA in OH]

I use MS Security Essentials and have had none of the problems seen here. My computer maker used to have AVG on my machines while he evaluated Essentials but is now convinced it works fine. I have a firewall, too, and no wifi use on my work machines. The wifi I do use with my Kindle, etc. is pw protected but I never have client data on wifi.

[Gail in Virginia]

We use Trend Worry-Free Business Security, and so far, we are not having any problems.with the software that are related to anti-virus protection.

[RitaB]

I disabled MSE, rebooted, but I still have the problems. Thanks, anyway!

[joanmcq]

I'm using Norton and have no problems.

[Janitor Bob]

I use Vipre antivirus / internet security....no problems here. I did temporarily disable it to see if that improved ATX speed, but I saw no noticeable difference so I re-enabled it. I have had no issues aside from the occasional shut down

[Catherine]

I use AVG 2013 and on my XP machine I had to specifically tell AVG to allow several executables (per info on the ATX web site) and since then the program is running faster and there have been (cross fingers!) NO crashes.

Hasn't been an issue on my Windows 7 machine -- but that one is still running AVG 2012; hadn't gotten around to the 2013 update yet.

Tell your anti-virus software to allow:

ATX2012.exe

ATX2012.Loader.exe

SFS.Max.rolloverservice.exe

SFS.Printprocess.exe

[mcb39]

I have AVG 2013 on both the XP and the Win 7 and I didn't have to tell either one of them anything. Everything is much too quirky this year. What works for some, etc..............!!!!!!!!!!

[ReadingEA]

Disabled on all machines - no better even after 12.6.