Setting up antivirus exclusions for Vault Cache on desktops

[David_standish]

Troubleshooting some performance issues with Vault Cache synchronization.   Found the list of recommended Antivirus exclusions (see below).  Since these file paths can be variable, how are folks handling setting up exclusions?  I was thinking about using *.MDC and *.DB since those are the main files with data in those folders.  What are others doing?

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH48856&actp=search&viewlocale=en_U...

- David

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

to be honest i dont think many companies are setting exclusions on the users desktops
But what you have described would be adequate, the only other files generated are ini and xml files and they wont be a cause of concern for your AV

[Rob_Wilcox1]

I'm not sure I'd exclude them to be honest - they're "only" PST files.

[JesusWept3]

Well thats kind of an odd statement, why would you then need to exclude other things EV uses with PST's involved?

(ie temp holding area, the Cache Location on the servers, PST exports that DA does etc etc)?

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Just my opinion is all.  (That's why I said "not sure")

An end - user workstation is a TOTALLY different beast to a server.  End users get up to "all sorts" of stuff.. sometimes maybe even business related ;) on their machines.  In addition the operations being performed are totally different.

Client side antivirus tends to have all sorts of hooks in to applications and the file system. So if, for example, you excluded .MDC and .DB files and you only excluded them in the OVROOT folder structure, the antivirus product may still end up scanning the items ... via Outlook.

[AL_G]

Hello

I've been looking at exactly the same thing and I'm finding the responses in here quite "bizzare"!

This question relates to an "official" Symantec KB article which clearly says:

"Recommended list of antivirus exclusions for Symantec Enterprise Vault"
...
"Windows 7: C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\KVS\Enterprise Vault\<STOREKEYDIR>"

@Rob - Why would you (as a Symantec representative) then say "I'm not sure I'd exclude them"  - surely this creates an ambiguous situation?!
(BTW I think your responses are normally really good !)

I'm guessing whoever wrote that article had good reason to include them.

The reason I'm looking at this is I'm having a lot of issues with instant search not working against virtual vault and AV has been mentioend as a possible...

Including a referce to the "<STOREKEYDIR>" could well be "tricky" to list as an AV exclusion, so I think the question is very much reasonsable and relevent.

-AL

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Sorry, I just gave my opinion.

If you want an official Symantec response then :-

a/  Contact Support directly.

b/  Use the technotes which exist, and if it raises questions then you can see point a :)

By the way I'm looking at an escalation for Instant Search not working for Virtual Vault.  [And in my repro I do not have [and never will have] antivirus running]

[David_standish]

Some of my users with very large archives that have Virtual Vault (9.0.1 add-in against 8.0 SP4 server) enabled have reported that Outlook becomes unresponsive for several minutes when attempting to search.  When I disable Vault Cache Synchronization on the desktop, reports are that performance gets better.  I started going down the path of antivirus or WDS.  Is there something brewing with Instant Search?  Will open a call soon if I can't make progress.  Thanks all.