I have Windows 7 Ultimate 32 and CIS 4 latest version.
I attached the hard drive from an XP machine via USB to scan it for viruses.
You may know that if you try to open someone else’s user folder from another OS on another drive ( C:\Documents and Settings\XPUser) under Vista or Win7 will ask you to get permission on the folder first before you can open it in explorer.
With CAV, it simply does not scan these folders, it skips right over them.
However, as an example, NOD32 online scan does scan these folders.
I am guessing (but have not tested) that attaching the drive via USB to a machine running XP and scanning from there will work because XP naturally gives itself the permission, because XP is better than Vista\Windows 7 
Anyway, the point is, that CAV should be able to scan all directories no matter what.
It should then be run with more permissions.
Purpose of Cavscan is only to do a quick scan on a folder or several files.
The requested scan you’d like to run should be created as scan profile on the GUI and run by cmdagent.exe which has sufficient permissions to scan all folders.
But that is just inconvenient, and rather stupid. (I’m not saying your suggestion is stupid, I am saying the design of CAV is)
The point of a quick scan is just that - to be quick. If I have to manually play around just to scan a single folder then what is the point of even having a quick scan? - then the quick scan should just be called a “maybe scan”
If I don’t know if a folder contains folders\files with those permissions issues then how do I know if I should run a quick scan or set up a scan profile?
Of course the only solution would be to create scan profiles for everything so that I know for sure that everything is going to be scanned the first time. Otherwise I just have to waste even more time trying a quick scan or checking all the folder permissions to see if quick scan will be able to scan them or not. this makes the quick scan completely pointless.
The quick scan should have these permissions by default, so that quick scan is actually useful.
The worst part is that I only noticed this by accident, makes me wonder how many viruses I have missed in the past because I assumed that the quick scanner was doing its job and actually scannning what I told it to.
I agree, but it seems we need to put that on the wishlist, as it’s currently by design to run it under the logged on users permissions.
It could also ask for elevation IF it runs in to permission issues (on Vista and higher)
Yes that would be a good idea, either prompt for elevation or just do it.
I wouldn’t have treated it as a bug if I knew it was a ‘feature’