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McAfee preventing Windows 7 logons
We are experiencing what appears to be a growing problem with Windows 7 and McAfee 8.8 preventing logons via AD. There isn’t much information to provide since we have been unable to see any logged activity either in Windows or in the McAfee logs to help
diagnose the problem, yet when we disable the Access Protection feature the logons will proceed normally. The other odd behavior we are seeing is that this seems to only affect new users/logons. For example, existing users who had successfully logged on to
the computer previously (either prior to installing or upgrading to McAfee 8.8) do not have the problem. We believe that McAfee (or something else?) is preventing the creation of new profiles in the c:\users directory.
Some of the workarounds being used are safe mode booting, let the user logon (basically creates the profile), and then reboot in normal mode after the profile is created on the computer. We also tried putting in an exception for the c:\users directory
and the logons can proceed normally.
If someone has experienced this problem and has a viable solution we would like to hear from you.
Thanks.
Bob Smith
AVP IITS & Information Security Officer
Longwood University
Recommend
Comments
What happens if you do a complete scan of the entire C:\Users\Default directory? Since the contents of that directory are effectively copied into a new directory when a new user is created, a false positive detection would cause an issue. In addition, if McAfee is taking action that is blocking it and you aren’t seeing it on an ePO server, it seems like it’s either a bug in the software or a configuration setting that needs to be toggled so that blocks are being reported back to ePO (or logged locally). As an additional troubleshooting technique, you could probably turn on auditing (for both success and failure) on an affected system, and see what’s being blocked and what’s being allowed when a new user logs on.
-- KS
Keith Schoenefeld
Information Security Analyst
Baylor University
254-710-6667
Are you running Artemis? If so, it could be the problem. Try running on recommended levels if so. Also, are you copying files down in your login scripts that McAfee could be having trouble with? (Like auditing agents or anything like that?) Just a guess. We’ve been running v8.8 for a while and have seen no such issues. Did this just start recently or as soon as you deployed v8.8?
Dexter Caldwell
Dir. Systems & Networks
Information Technology Services
Furman University
3300 Poinsett Hwy
Greenville, SC 29613
email: dexter.caldwell@furman.edu
office: 864-294-3566
facsimile: 864-294.3001
D/C
I too have had multiple problems with A/V (two different A/V companies even) causing issues with C:\Users\Default. In my case, there wasn't even a false positive, but for whatever reason the scanner got hung up in there long enough that Windows got annoyed. Adding an exclusion for real-time scanning to C:\Users\Default fixed the problem.
Sorry for the delay in responding to the list on this issue, but it seems our techs have isolated the problem to something associated with our install of the OS through our imaging process. When we manually install the OS and then install McAfee the problem is non-existent. However, when we install using our image of the OS and then add McAfee the problem surfaces. So this may not even be a McAfee problem per se.
Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. If anyone is interested you can email off-list and I will gladly share our findings once they are finalized.
Bob
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Eric Lukens
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 2:42 PM
To: SECURITY@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] McAfee preventing Windows 7 logons
I too have had multiple problems with A/V (two different A/V companies even) causing issues with C:\Users\Default. In my case, there wasn't even a false positive, but for whatever reason the scanner got hung up in there long enough that Windows got annoyed. Adding an exclusion for real-time scanning to C:\Users\Default fixed the problem.
-Eric