McAfee On-Access Scanner, a process with an executable file extension of mcshield.exe, is an important component of McAfee Antivirus products. The primary function of the file is to scan your computer, and all the files and data that are coming in from the Internet, from your emails or from external drives; to make sure that no threat is attached to these files. If any are discovered by the scanner, it will automatically delete the file or put it in isolation so it will not infect your PC. If there is incoming threat, the user will be immediately alerted so the file will not be opened, accessed or executed. This is a background task that should be enabled while the PC is open, whether or not the PC is connected to the Internet. By default, the location of the file is C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\SystemCore\mcshield.exe. It has an approximate RAM usage of 15.37 MB, and a file size of 194.34 KB.

Most non-system processes that are running can be stopped because they are not involved in running your operating system. mcshield.exe. is used by McAfee On-Access Scanner, If you shut down mcshield.exe, it will likely start again at a later time either after you restart your computer or after an application start. To stop mcshield.exe, permanently you need to uninstall the application that runs this process which in this case is McAfee On-Access Scanner, from your system.

After uninstalling applications it is a good idea to scan you Windows registry for any left over traces of applications. Registry Reviver by ReviverSoft is a great tool for doing this.

The ReviverSoft experts have not yet reviewed mcshield.exe

A process usually a part of an installed application such as McAfee On-Access Scanner, or your operating system that is responsible for running in functions of that application. Some application require that they have processes running all the time so they can do things such as check for updates or notify you when you get an instant message. Some poorly written applications have many processes that run that may not be required and take up valuable processing power within your computer.

We have not received any complaint about this process having higher than normal impact on PC performance. If you have had bad experiences with it please let us know in a comment below and we will investigate it further.

The first thing you should do if mcshield.exe. is causing errors on your computer is to run a Windows registry scan with Registry Reviver If you are still seeing errors after this you should uninstall the program that mcshield.exe, belongs to, in this case McAfee On-Access Scanner