Since it was up for a week here with no replies, I moved it over to the Small Business forums and got a quick reply there. Anyone curious can view the thread at  https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/multiple-savfmsespexe-processes-0

Yeah it isquite normal.They are automatically picked up by installtion.

Formula is  ( number of physical processors time 2) + 1.

So if you have 2 processors it should be 2*2+1=5.

It is slightly different in case of Xeon Processor.Whole core is considered one processor.

I hope that explains.

Hi Need,

It is normal to have multiple SAVFMSESp.exe processes running.  These seperate processes and scanning threads handle more than one message at a time, increasing performance. 

Details on how calculations are made can be found in Calculating the Number of Scan Processes in Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange 5.x and 6.x.  Unless there is very good reason, though, it's recommended that the defaults NOT be changed.

Final note: keep an eye out for the release of SMSMSE 6.0.9, expected later in July 2009! 

Thanks and best regards,

Mick

I would like to add a line to a batch script that changes the number of VSAPI proccesses.
Is it possible to operate the Mail Security using a command line?

Thanks,
Amit

Hi Amit,

This is not possible.  I recommend that SMSMSE be controlled from a remote console and that the number of processeors in each Exchange server is checked carefully before making any adjustments to the number of VSAPI scanning threads.  Applying the same setting to many diffeernt Exchange servers regardless of their hardware would be a bad idea.

Thanks and best regards,

Mick

I wanted to automate the configuration change.

Thanks anyway,
Amit