Hello.
Every time I start my computer, I open up Task manager and end explorer.exe right when I login, I wait for a little bit, then use “New Task” to start it again. This is so that I start up the programs I want to run, essentially extinguishing all of the spam programs I don’t need that Hewlett Packard pre-installs on all of their machines.
But, AvastUI.exe doesn’t start. I know AvastSvc.exe starts even without explorer.exe, as it is a Service. And I usually manually run AvastUI.exe anyway.
The bottom line is; Is AvastUI.exe just the GUIs, and am I offered the same protection if it isn’t running? (In other words, is AvastSvc.exe the core engine?)
I cannot say I see much sense in what you are doing (the automatically started programs should already be started by the time you terminate the explorer process, so I don’t know how it helps).
Anyway, to answer your question… I’d say “mostly”.
The usual antivirus scanning is performed (and infected files blocked) even without the UI process… but some features (like the AutoSandbox) might be limited because of the missing user-interraction possibility.
And, yes, allot of the programs start instantly, but not the unnecessary HP spam programs, for some reason. It takes like, 20-30 seconds for them to activate, and explorer starts them. So that’s how it helps.
Would pcdecrapifier be the thing for you? It helps you to get rid of preinstalled junk. Never used it myself (pc is homebuilt), but I did read a positive review in the German magazine C’t (Computer Technik).