I create a new thread for this as it’s messy to have it spread across two threads.
I now have uninstalled and cleaned up 6.0 and reinstall 5.1 instead to test.
Result so far is:
Shutdown no longer hangs, but shuts down quite fast. Even with “file shield” active.
There is no delay at startup scanning all files linked to from start menu each time.
Was a delay first time. But next boot it did not scan then (in the buffer I guess).
There was no continuous scanning of “AvastUI.exe” like in the lastest 6.0 beta.
Was scanned a few times at start, but not over and over forever as with 6.0 beta.
So, what do we do know. It obviously is something that has been changed in 6.0 and does not work good on all XP installations. I use FAT32 file-system, but the other one that have the same problem use NTFS.
How can we help figuring this out? Or must XP users with these problems stay on 5.1 forever?
There must be something else involved.
Avast 6 is running perfectly smooth and without observeable impact on speed / performance on my XP machine.
I’ld suggest to convert your drive to the NTFS-filesystem first and see, if that resolves the problem. That can be done with XP’s tools and without any need to uninstall either OS or programs.
Were you using Avast 6.0.1021 Free version or some other version? You say you are using 5.1, but exactly what version? 5.1.889? And what product? Free, Pro, AIS?
Did you uninstall using the Avast uninstaller tool http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe to remove All versions and products previously installed on this machine prior to reinstalling, then reboot?
What other security software do you currently have or did you have in the past on this machine including:
Antivirus (AV) - besides Avast
Firewall (FW)
Trial versions of AV, FW and other security programs
Other security software
Have you previously submitted a mini-dump to Avast?
I don’t doubt that, however, there might be some other service / program running that, in conjunction with Avast 6, might cause a problem due to FAT 32…
And FAT 32 is outdated, at least for system-drives.
Why are you keeping it on your system?
Everything worked OK with 5.1.889 (and I have reverted back to that now)
Problems started with the official 6.0 (first problem was the shutdown problem)
When I tested with the latest beta I found more problems (the continous scanning of “AvastUI.exe”)
One strange thing. After going back to 5.1 I still have lots of scanning at start (not as much as with 6.0 but enough that starting things are real slow the first 5-10 minutes after a boot). Did not have that with 5.1 earlier. Have tried to do a full scan to “fill up” the “buffering” for allready scanned files.
I have tried uninstalling and cleaning up with the right tools
I have tried uninstalling ZoneAlarm (didn’t help)
I have tried the cleanup service (to see if anything was logged during shutdown)
Other security programs running: Only ZoneAlarm 4.5, and I have tried uninstalling and testing without that
Mini-dump: How do I do that? Is there any other debugging I can switch on (to log the excessive scanning of many .exe files at start - does not happend with 5.1 - and the shutdown problem with 6.0)?
OK, just found something (by accident) that I can not explain.
Need you smart people out there to figure out this one
I have a Microsoft Intellitype keyboard with hotkeys.
Just found that if I’m starting a program from the start menu (like “Forte Agent”) or using a normal shortcur key (like “Ctrl-Alt-A”) the program start at once. No delay.
BUT. If I start it from one of the hotkeys on the keyboard (through the Intellitype software) THEN avast! scans all the programs pointed to by shortcuts in the start menu before launching the program.
Why on earth this strange behaviour? And why did it start after upgrading avast! to 6.0
(and it hasn’t disappeared after changing back to 5.1, still does that, a bit fast, but still).
Why would starting a program (like “Forte Agent”) from another program (“IntelliType”) trigger avast! to scan all programs linked to in the start menu. Doesn’t seem logical at all.
But I have tested and tested now. And it is like described above every time I test ???
Found what probebly cause the scanning of lots of programs when starting things.
This (as mentioned above) only happends when I start things from IntelliType keys.
It seems like IntelliType keeps a list of programs recently started on the computer.
This list is exacly the programs avast! scans when I use an IntellType keys to start something.
But why this has started to happend now I don’t have a clue. And not how to avoid it.
Good idea. That could fix that problem (I’ll also try to enable the option for IntelliType not to maintain this list of programs, but that option is greyed out so I need to lokk a bit into that
Then 5.1 should work perfect again. But it doesn’t fix the 6.0 and 6.0 beta stuff (hanging at shutdown and scanning “AvastUI.exe” over and over - all though the last one can also be fix with an exclusion
