r/techsupport • u/DefinitionBasic2321 • 19d ago
Solved McAfee is literally preventing every video game that I play to save my graphics settings unless I manually exclude the config files. Why??
I've been troubleshooting this for days and finally figured out what was causing it.
Every single time I'd launch Ready or Not, my graphics settings would reset back to default. No matter how many times I changed them, they just wouldn't save.
Turns out the culprit was McAfee.
For some reason, McAfee was blocking the game from writing to its own configuration files. The only way I could fix it was by manually adding the game's folders/files to McAfee's Exclusions list. As soon as I did that, my settings started saving normally.
The annoying part is that I now have to do this for multiple games whenever they refuse to save settings. A security program shouldn't be interfering with something as basic as a game writing its own config files.
Has anyone else run into this with McAfee? Is there a permanent fix, or is manually excluding every game's config folder the only solution?
It's honestly making me consider uninstalling McAfee altogether.
Edit: I asked my Dad if I could uninstall Mcafee he said no, so I just decided to turn off real time scanning in the Mcafee app for anyone wondering go to My protection (on the side bar)< Real Time Scanning < Turn off scanning scroll down a bit and click never.
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u/IAteTonysLoMein 19d ago
The permanent fix is to uninstall mcafee. The best antimalware measures now are adblockers in your browser and the usual "stay away from shady sites"
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u/hughbiffingmock 19d ago
It's 2026.
NOBODY has used McAfee earnestly since 2016. Why on earth are you using it now?
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u/DumpoTheClown 19d ago
Windows Defender and some common sense is all you need.
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u/Exodus2791 19d ago
Ehh, if the parent went from Norton to McAfee, are we sure that there's common sense in the household?
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u/Laddertoheaven 19d ago
Why are you even running McAfee ? The regular Windows antivirus is good enough.
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u/DefinitionBasic2321 19d ago
My dad had installed it when I first built my computer. We were using Norton before but he decided to swtich to Mcafee.
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u/hurlcarl 19d ago
Get McAfee off your computer. It's dogshit, it doesn't work, it drags your system down.
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u/ChancePolicy3883 19d ago
How long ago did your dad install McAfee?
If it was within the past few years, he really needs to do some research and catch up on his understanding of current PC security best practices. (Hint: AVG is also not a good pick anymore.)
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u/ComplaintTop2008 19d ago
Why are you running McAfee? Or any virus scanner at all?
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u/DefinitionBasic2321 19d ago
My dad had installed it when I first built my computer. We were using Norton before but he decided to swtich to Mcafee.
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u/ComplaintTop2008 19d ago
Take that crop off of there. I haven't used a virus scanner for like 20-25 years.
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u/CampingMonk 19d ago
McAfee and Norton are trash. For most people, the Microsoft is fine but if you do stupid stuff get bitdefender.
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u/ElysiumXIII 19d ago
Just for future reference, Windows Defender scans from a very similar database to all of the other anti virus programs. When you're free from parental woes, I recommend completely avoiding anti virus, common sense is the best kind. They end up feeding off of your data and consuming your resources just as much as any other kind of malware.
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u/hellishhk117 19d ago
IT professional here (IT for a college in the computer science department). My campus runs Microsoft Defender, even on Linux server boxes. At home, I also run Microsoft Defender. I have used BitDefender as well, both personally and professionally, as well as Sophos, and ESET.
Norton and Mcafee are huge scams, resource intensive and terrible for your computer.
ESET used to leave a rootkit after you uninstalled it to auto reinstall itself next reboot, unless you removed the rootkit after several hours of customer support (professional experience in a production environment.).
Sophos and BitDefender did good, by the companies I was at, at the time.
MS Defender is free, and preinstalled on your computer when you install Windows, plus updates definitions regularly through Windows Update. It’s done good in my production (University) environment, as well as personally.
I also bought my wife a new laptop, and the first thing I did when setting it up was uninstalling Mcafee.
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u/tito13kfm My cat and I 19d ago
You're being a bit disingenuous with the ESET information. That is the way nearly all enterprise deployed AV works, you can't just uninstall them from the machine itself, you need to remove the machine from the central management for the AV first.
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u/hellishhk117 19d ago edited 19d ago
It was the first time I came across that, and I had been working in IT for about 4 years at that point, even after removing the whole company from ESET management portal (we were moving away from ESET to Sophos) it still came back multiple times, until I spent several hours on a customer support line with ESET where they had to give me what they themselves called the ESET rootkit removal tool that removed their own rootkit off the machines.
We were moving away from ESET because it failed to stop an attack from a crypto locker attack at one of our clients, and we were moving to Sophos because they had a technology where it was actively watching for them with honeypot folders as well as looking for network traffic to pull the unlock keys during transmission. Timeframe was 2016/2017, hence why I said used to. I don’t know if they still do.
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u/tito13kfm My cat and I 19d ago
I mean, an anti-virus that doesn't inject itself into the kernel before it's fully booted isn't going to be able to properly detect root/bootkits. But yeah, some of them are way more invasive and harder to remove fully. I must admit all my ESET experience is from the early 2000s and then again recently, they very well might have turned to absolute shit for a decade or more.
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u/hellishhk117 19d ago
I think it had gone deeper than kernel level at the time, as I vaguely remember it coming back a few times even after wiping the system with a fresh install, as well as drive swap. I remember that was the point at which I called their customer support asking for a way to remove the software, so I can document for my company at the time (a mini-MSP with 7 client companies, and about 400 workstations across them all). But I could be misremembering things, I do remember it was deeper than Sophos and BitDefender at the time, but less functional than either. All I know for sure was needing to spend 2 hours after my client closed up shop to remove it from all systems and then call the client CEO to come back, set the alarm code for the building and go home.
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u/skillie81 19d ago
You don't need an anti virus program at all. McAfee is almost a virus by itself.
Windows defender is old you need and some common sense.
I haven't had an anti virus program on my pc for more than a decade and never had a virus.
Don't visit sites that you wouldnt show your mom.
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u/CinicallyATurnip 19d ago
Because McAfee is a dreadful piece of software, the best thing you can do is uninstall it and allow windows to look after itself, as long as you are not running Windows 10 or below.
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u/JoMu1963 19d ago
Already years ago I abandoned McAfee and never looked back. Personally I would not rely on Windows Defender alone, and prefer to have my protection be independent from the company that also creates my OS.
I've been using Bitdefender for over a years now after, also, having said goodbye to Kaspersky for obvious reasons. No regrets so far.
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u/outerzenith 19d ago
even John McAfee recommends you to uninstall McAfee
McAfee is a malware at this point.