Approximately about a year ago I purchased a new laptop with Windows Vista and installed free McAfee software from my internet service provider. Ever since then I would have intermittent problems with high disk activity and browser hangs requiring me to bring up the task manager to kill the browser or force a shutdown (sometimes a menu shutdown would work but other times I would be required to manually shutdown the computer). Browser hangs would typically occur at least once every couple of days.

Then recently a new build of the McAfee Security Center (Version 9.15 – Build 9.15.175 – Language Pack 9.15.117) was updated on my computer and all hell broke lose. After the new version of McAfee was installed, a message popped up stated that my computer was not protected so I clicked on "Fix" (initially I didn’t always click on "Fix" but McAfee would keep annoying me will reminders causing me to click on "Fix"). Within an hour excessive disk activity occurred and the browser would hang requiring a manual shutdown. This kept occurring repetitively for several days until I decided to not click on "Fix" and over the last several days, I haven’t had any problems.

The problem with McAfee appears to be that when "Fix" is clicked, a full scan of the system is performed causing the high disk activity and browser hangs.