I assume that it is the full version, with a 30 day evalutation period, during which a valid registration key must be entered, or the program will cease to funtion. So why can’t I get it to work on day 1 of the evalutation period?
I am a registered pro user with a valid license; I can find no File menu or way to accomplish this.
An official reply would be appreciated. I see no need to continue paying for this product if this feature has been removed; it’s the very reason I purchase the professional version.
Still no official response from Avast. Maybe they removed this feature from version 5 but neglected to remove the references to it in the Help File?
Anyway, I’m wondering what an alternative solution would be. Do I need to roll out an avast! Management Server running the Avast Distributed Network Manager (ADNM) just so that I can apply the custom settings to each workstation without having to physically touch each one? I sure hope not.
I’m really only trying to accomplish two things;
1 - Perform an unattended / silent install
2 - Set the option to update the program automatically instead of its default of update manually.
Update: After doing some further testing I discovered that silent installs of both the pro and free versions can be performed by adding the /Silent switch when running the installer. ie setup_av_pro_eng.exe /Silent or setup_av_free_eng.exe /Silent.
Now I need to find out where to add the registration key and the setting for the Automatic Program Update. I don’t see an .ini file or registry setting for these settings.
Well I found out thanks to Martinss that the setting for Automatic Program Updates is stored in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\Avast5.ini
So I added the line ProgramUpdate=Auto and re-saved the file. Of course as Martinss said Avast’s self-protection kicked in, causing it to ask for confirmation before allowing me to overwrite the file. However once I approved this Avast gladly accepted the new setting and reflected it appropriately in the program settings screen.
So now I need to find a way to automate this process without avast asking for confirmation.
Perhaps something along the lines of…
Start “Avast Pro Installer” /Wait CMD /C setup_av_free_eng.exe /Silent
I’ve tried it in both the free and the pro versions and the results have been the same. Of course I didn’t expect it to work in the free version anyway.
Perhaps the developers would prefer that we use a Management Server running the Avast Distributed Network Manager (ADNM), but short of that I can’t seem to make it work with version 5 like I used to do with version 4, and since I’ve still not received a response from the support ticket that I submitted regarding this issue I can only speculate.
Either way, at this time, my choices are to go back to version 4, or update each PC manually. Neither solution gives me much joy.
I received a response from ALWIL support today and they officially confirmed the silent installation feature has been removed from version 5 avast! Pro. I just wanted to confirm what we all suspected.
