My first indication of trouble was receiving the attached popup from Avast indicating a problem protecting mail/news. When I checked the real time shields I was surprised to find that the Mail Shield was running. I was also surprised to see that the Web Shield was not.
I tried repairing Avast, uninstalling Avast including aswclear5 (in normal and safe modes) and re-installing. Web Shield refused to run and each reboot prompted me with the attached information dialog.
After one complete uninstall, I searched the registry and found at least a dozen leftover Avast entries including legacy keys. Apparently, aswclear5 doesn’t do a very good job.
I resolved the problem (for now?) by restoring a disk image from 3/27/10, then updated the existing 5.0.462 to 5.0.507 through the program updater.
This thread has my interest as I had just installed April’s Windows Updates on this system. (?)
What is error 4294967295, anyway?
XP/32 SP3 AMD 2.4 Ghz 2.0 GB RAM Avast Free 5.0.507 CIS 3.14.x.587 SAS Pro 4.35.1002
Well I have also installed Aprils WU and if you look at my ‘signature’ you will see the same OS and no problems with avast.
You report having CIS and seeing that gives me worries as that is a full blown internet security suite including AV (I don’t know if you have uninstalled the AV element as you don’t say) and that if it monitors email would conflict.
Legacy keys are the preserve of the OS, since you don’t mention what other keys, I can’t comment/hazard a guess why.
No, Comodo AV has never been installed on this system, only the firewall and HIPS. I do have Comodo AV installed on two other systems, though.
I think you missed my point about the leftover registry keys even after running aswclear. I believe this is a big factor of why users cannot or have difficulty uninstalling/re-installing Avast after a meltdown.
I haven’t missed the point, I said that windows is responsible for the legacy keys and since you don’t say what the others are how can anyone say anything as we don’t know what these keys are. So I give up.
as I mentioned in another thread, aswclear5 doesn’t clean properly at all. You get much better results with the normal uninstaller. David told me then that aswclear5 was meant for emergency situations when the normal uninstaller can’t be used…so yeah, probably because otherwise it’s pretty useless and not good at all, and i’m not surprised you got entries left behind in the registry when using it. I tried it once and it left tens of avast files, I didn’t check the registry but it was probably crowded with corresponding entries.