Avast 5.0 Free and Microsoft Outlook 2000

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Greetings,

I just upgraded to Avast 5.0 Free from Avast 4.8. I am now getting an error message when I open my Outlook 2000 that states:

The add-in "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashOutXt.dll could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using Detect and Repair on the Help menu. Unable to load “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\a…”

I assume that Outlook is trying to access the old 4.8 version.

I am running a Windows XP SP3 on an AMD Athlon 64.

My question is will Avast 5.0 work with Outlook 2000? According to the Avast System Summary everything is running and protected. The mail shield states that it is scanning both incoming and outgoing mail.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

Yes avast will work with outlook 2007, the problem is that outlook still has a reference to the 4.8 plug-in.

  • Outlook plugin relates to avast4 so won’t work in avast5 -either deleting the avast4 plug-in (or changing the path to point at the avast5 folder may work). Sometimes the Extend.dat file of Outlook, etc. can get messed up, see this topic to see how this problem was resolved, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=56625.0
  • This particular post in that topic from one of the Alwil team, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=56625.msg494023#msg494023.
  • Also see this post if the above doesn’t resolve it http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=59527.msg501954#msg501954, registry change info.
  • Please find attached the file that will carry out what I recommended for you. Just save it to your computer, rename it so that it has .reg extension rather than .txt and double click it. As many of you pointed out, the extend.dat file often gets corrupted or out of sync with the registry. To resolve this issue you need to turn off outlook (ensure it is not running in task manager and kill it if necessary). Once you have outlook out of your way just run the following command:

del “%userprofile%\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\extend.dat”

Note this will only delete the file for the current user, so if there are other users sharing the same computer they will need to run the same command. Outlook will recreate the extend.dat file from the registry next time it starts.

3

Thank you for the response.

I am using Outlook 2000 not Outlook 2007. Will your suggestions work for Outlook 2000?

Thanks!

4

Yes I believe so if the “%userprofile%\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\extend.dat” file exists on your system.

I don’t use Outlook of any version so I suggest reading the various links I gave to get a better feel for how to do it and what it is doing.

5

Question for David R: You stated

Outlook plug-in relates to avast4 so won’t work in avast5 -either deleting the avast4 plug-in (or changing the path to point at the avast5 folder may work).

I’ve got the reference to the wrong path too. Question: How do I change the pointing you mentioned? Or should I just uninstall Avast 5 en reinstall again?

Edit: I withdraw my question. The Extend.dat solution finally worked. Ik had some trouble finding the good one in Win7.

Thanks to all

6

Check out the other topic references that I gave in my Reply #1 above, they show how to do this.

Reinstalling avast5 won’t change the problem which is Outlook related, it is what is pointing to the wrong location.

7

@DavidR: Just saw you reply after my Edit. Thanks, you were right.

8

No problem, glad I could help.

Welcome to the forums.

9

have installed my new avast 5.0677 but when i open my outlook 2000 it has an error message that says outlook could not install or load it. what must i do? i should tell you that i am not very computer literate when it comes to programming.
thanks for the help!