A couple of questions

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

OK…I decided to try out avast. The program controls and settings look very thorough but I’m having two problems.

First my system info.

AMD Sempron 2200 with 512 MB RAM.
Currently no AV or software firewall. (I just uninstalled them to try avast) I had eTrust suite (AV, Firewall, Anti-Spam and Pest Patrol…free from my ISP)
Windows 2000 SP4
avast Version 4.6.763

Problem 1. For the list of providers the provider for Outlook 2003 is not starting. I found in the FAQ an entry to fix this using this code:

C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\REGSVR32.EXE ACTSKIN4.OCX

No luck. I get a message stating ‘DllRegisterServer in ACTSKIN4.OCX succeeded’ to which I click OK. The provider still won’t start. I have Administrative privileges with the current user account.

Problem 2. I have seen a couple of posts for this in the forum but their solutions didn’t seem to help. After installing avast, every time I start the computer, avast says it needs to restart the system.

Problem 1 is not a big issue since I use Thunderbird and not Outlook anyhow. Problem 2 is getting annoying and I’m not sure that avast is working properly.

I installed the program with the ‘Custom’ setting but didn’t change any options. I was just curious what the options were. I have uninstalled and re-installed with the same effects. I have downloaded the program again and re-installed to make sure I got a good download. Same problems. The program is registered as a home installation through the program.

Can someone please give me a starting point on how to fix the reboot problem at least? From what I’ve seen, I like the software and really want to use it. I just need it to function properly.

Any help is appreciated and thanks in advance for any replies.

Randy

EDIT: I found out why the Outlook provider wasn’t running…It’s because Outlook was not open. So now I only have the reboot problem.

2

Welcome mrmcctt, possibly etrust did not uninstall completely.It seems a lot of people have problems with norton uninstall(as an example).Did you check add/remove for any other etust products?

3

I completely uninstalled all of the programs from the eTrust suite. I tried running RegSeeker after to (hopefully) clear everything out of the registry.

4

Maybe someone else will have an idea.Avast has an uninstall utility available. You might search etrust site to see if they have one.

5

eTrust didn’t have an uninstall program that I could find but the site did give me some clues about where to check in the registry. As far as I can tell, eTrust is completely gone.

I’m still at a loss as to why avast still wants a reboot at every boot up.

6

Have you tried a repair of the avast program?

Add/remove > select Avast anti-virus > click Change/Remove > scroll down and select Repair > click OK and follow instructions.

You must be on-line when you do this.

I hope this helps you. :slight_smile:

7

See above ;D

8

Thanks but that didn’t do it either. After the repair you are prompted to restart the computer. I did and after the restart I was still prompted to restart the computer.

9

:slight_smile: Hi mrmcctt :

  From the posts, it appears you have used 2 of the 3 
 "steps" I usually recommend to insure complete removal
  of a program; the only "step" I did not see mentioned
  is if you used "Search > All files and folders", put in the
 "search term" "eTrust" 1st and "Pest Patrol" later and
  deleted every appropiate entry the "Search" lists !?
10

Hmmmm…

Maybe it needed all those restarts. After doing everything that I mentioned above yesterday and shutting down for the night to think about this, I got up this morning and booted up the system. No restart prompt!!! Cool!!!

Thanks to all for your help. I think I’m going to like this.

Randy

11

Yes, doing a reboot after changes made is something we often take for granted and fail to mention. :frowning:

Sometimes it is not needed but at other times it is. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s good to know your problem is solved! :smiley:

12

OK…Spoke too soon. It ran most of the day fine and then just popped up a restart window for no appearant reason. I thought it might have just updated and needed a reboot so I rebooted.

Now every time I start Windows again, it asks for a reboot. ???

Any ideas?

Thanks.

As an edit, I have been reading http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=18091.0 and found out that the reboot.txt file keeps getting generated in the avast\setup folder and that this key in the registry keeps getting generated:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOpertaions

I think this isi my problem but don’t know the cure. The reboot.txt file that is generated is always an empty (0kb) file. ???

13

There’s nothing else in the PendingFileRenameOperations key?
(it’s a “multi-string” value, so you have to open it to see all the items).

14

I’m not sure how to open it. If I double click on the key, all I get looks like hex code that I cannot copy and paste here. Also a new, empty reboot.txt file gets created in the ‘c:\program files\alwil software\avast4\setup’ folder

Below is all that is in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations key:

Type Column:

REG_MULTI_SZ

Followed by

Data Column:

\??\C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\Setup\reboot.txt

I am curious about the '??' in the key as I don’t ever remember seeing anything like this before.

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully I can get this worked out.

15

Try regedt32.exe (instead of regedit.exe) - it’s got better display of multi-string values.

The question marks (??\C:.…) are OK.

16

I forgot about the regedt32. ::slight_smile:

Here’s what’s listed when I open the key under regedt32:

\??\C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\Setup\reboot.txt

\??\C:\WINNT\system32\psa3.tmp
!\??\C:\WINNT\system32\psapi.dll

When I closed this view, I received a message that stated that the key couldn’t contain empty strings (as shown with the blenk line between the first and second string above). Think I’ll try another reboot now that regedt32 fixed that and see what happens.

Thanks

17

Well…I remember reading in another thread that the reboot.txt file should not be in the avast4\setup folder so I removed it and restarted the system. It again aked for a reboot and when I did a regedt32 there was a blank string back in the key.

It’s acying like it wants to put something in the key but isn’t being allowed to do so. I don’t have anything running that should block it but I’m not sure.

18

As an update, I downloaded and used the ASWCLEAR software from the Avast website and used it to completely uninstall Avast. I rebooted the computer, downloaded a new copy of the install program, shut down all unneeded services in Task Manager, did a typical install, followed all prompts and did the requested scan at reboot.

No change to the outcome. Avast still wants a reboot at every start up. Also, using the ASWCLEAR didn’t seem to clear everything. The new install of Avast remembered my old password for Avast.

19

According to the registry key, I’d say avast! is trying to update your psapi.dll file (but Windows probably always puts back the original version).
What is the version of that DLL in your system folder?

20

The version listed in properties is 4.0.1371.1. This is in the c:\winnt\system32 folder. Not splitting hairs, just that you mentioned the system folder and this .dll was found in the system32 folder and I wanted to make sure that was correct.