Avast 4 Home hangs computer

[Lisandro]

@paroots post:20

Thanks. Understood. By the way, I still have a bit of a mystery. When I set the exclusions to PGPsdkServ.exe and PGPtray.exe (as discovered under ‘Processes’ tab of Windows Task Mangager), the program still tended to Hang although in a less dramatic way. This is when I had the Exclusions set and Standard Shield set to High. Any idea why it didn’t work on High? Just wondering.

Far from my user knowledge… I need Alwil team to answer

[Vlk]

Thanks for the feedback. I have done as you requested. By the way, I have disabled skins so my interface is different than you describe above. Here is my question. When I go to Standard Shield provider it has 3 settings: Normal, High, and Custom. When all is said and down, which setting would give me the best protection? I was able to put it on High after adding the exclusions (ie, PGPskdServ.exe and PGPtray.exe). Once I set it to high, it Hung but after cold boot it seemed happy.

The problem is much more subtle than you may thing, and is related to the internal workings of avast AND PGP. The situation here is quite similar as with other AV programs (I mean, running avast + another AV program at the same time). With PGP, it’s not so dramatic (the hang doesn’t occur that often) but still the problem is there.

The heart of the problem is that Windows was never designed to run more than one such a file system filter. While there are some tricks to avoid hangs as much as possible, it is still far from ideal. We’re making some changes for the avast 5 release to prevent as many incompatibilities as possible - so chances are the situation will improve over time.

Does this imply the program would work fine for me if I leave sensitivity set to Normal. Is this recommended?

Absolutely, I mean, normally, there’s no reason to change the sensitivity whatsoever. The “normal” level configuration was created as how we think is the optimal balance between security and performance.

Thanks
Vlk