Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 - Don't

I recently upgraded from Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 to 2015. Routine, I thought. NOT.

It turns out that 2015 has two major issue that make it unusable for me.

First, it seems to hang up Outlook files being downloaded from the server. When that happens, Kaspersky does not release the scan it is doing (using 25% of the CPU on a 4-core machine with 8GB memory). So when you start up Outlook again, it adds another 25% of CPU usage, etc.). You can’t stop the process or exit Kaspersky.  I wind up rebooting a couple of times a day.

But that’s not the worst. At apparently random intervals, Remote or GoToMeeting sessions ramped the Kaspersky CPU usage to 99%, so I could do nothing on the computer. I couldn’t even reboot, I had to hit the power switch. For this to happen in the middle of a conference call with a client or vendor (which it of course did) is obviously totally unacceptable.

So I called the paid Premium Support line. They were very good (although massively overburdened). First of all, I had somehow botched the install, so they cleaned everything out totally and reinstalled. Better (allowed me to isolate the issue) but still happening.

They said that there was nothing that could be done about the Outlook issue.

Kaspersky won’t let me go back to 2014, which never had this problem. I can’t live with having to reboot my machine 2-3 times a day. This falls under the category: “we’ll make your PC very secure. So secure you won’t be able to use it.” So my only solution is to either disable the e-mail anti-virus option (not a great solution) or switch vendors.

The moral of the story is: when you get prompted to upgrade to Kaspersky Internet Security 2015, don’t.

Comments

[Jurgen]

I have had similar issues with Kaspersky using 99% CPU on multiple clients PCs who I have upgraded to K.I.S. 2015 from K.I.S. 2014.

You should be able to un-install Kaspersky I.S. 2015, re-boot the PC and then install Kaspersky I.S. 2014

Entering the licence key that was used for the 2015 version should re-activate the 2014 version with the appropriate days remaining on the licence.