NIS conflict with SAS (no not that SAS!)

I use a statistical software package called SAS.  I'm about a year using NIS after switching from Kaspersky.  Recently, the SAS application has not been able to write temp files to disk.  SAS support provided the following explanation

 

"If nothing has changed then this could have been an update causing Antivirus to be different.  Exact details of interference vary from case to case but normally it has to do with a scheduled scan or Real Time scanning. "

 

Can this scanning be turned off?  (So I can test to see if the scanning is causing the problem.  ).  Is lack of Real Time Scanning basically removing my PC's protection?

 

thanks