Brad32.exe
(Network Associates)
Component of Network Associates Total Virus Defense Network Suite, Management Edition. Total Virus Defense will also be known to some as a Dr Solomon product, which it was till Network Associates acquired Dr Solomon. BRAD32 runs on the workstations and executes requests sent from the network fileserver these requests will mainly be to install virus updates, product updates, or to run virus scans. BRAD32 is a nightmare. In fact, in our experience most Dr Solomon products produced around the time that Dr Solomon were acquired by Network Associates, either side of the acquisition date, have proved to be full of problems (yet we used to swear by Dr Solomon before then!). In the case of BRAD32 the problems range from 100% CPU utilization, intolerable delays in opening files on the fileserver, or unbelievable performance problems when running programs which open many files, whether these files are local or not (such as temporary work files, etc..). Network Associates produced Management Edition 2.0 after its acquisition of Dr Solomon whose last version was 1.5. Version 2.5 was then introduced which no longer used BRAD32.
Recommendation :
In our experience most users running BRAD32 will experience very significant performance gains by getting rid of it. However, if you are a network administrator and you want to retain control over the antivirus implementation in your organisation, then our advice is to upgrade to a current version of Management Edition whenever you can afford it. Getting rid of BRAD32 depends on how it is implemented if you are an end-user, liaise with your network administrator as BRAD32 may be run by system policies (POLEDIT). If BRAD32 is not run by system policies, then you can disable it with Startup Manager.