Avast 6 and XP system restore issue?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I attempted a system restore, and when the system rebooted, instead of the system restore UI screen (rstui.exe)
telling me the restore was good or bad, the screen remained blank except for the wallpaper.

I waited a minute or so, it was still blank, so I hit ctrl-alt-delete to see if the task manager would come up.
After about two minutes it appeared. In the process list I could see Avastsvc, but not Avastui. Also setup.ovr was
running, another avast program.

I was able to restart explorer.exe, the desktop appeared but the confirmation from system restore UI never showed up.

I restarted from safemode, but the same problem occurred again when rebooting. In the task manager, Avastsvc and setup.ovr
were present along with two occurrences of rstui.exe, the system restore interface.

I tried it a third time, started in safemode, and allowed it to reboot back into safemode,
and system restore completed. It warned me it was successful but it had renamed some files/folders in
program files\alwil software\avast 5\defs.

When I rebooted back to normal mode, Avast was incapacitated and I had to restart the program from the UI. After about
5 minutes, it had recovered itself, and nothing odd could be seen in program files\alwil software\avast 5\defs.

Is the completion of system restore getting hung because of a deadlock with Avast? Perhaps the update process ?

2

Your Signature states that you are using Avast Free v.5.0, but the title of your post says Avast 6. What do you have installed on your machine (Version and product)?

If you recently upgraded from v.5. to v.6 and did a system restore, it is possible that things got messed up. I would therefore recommend the following:

  1. Clean your machine of all temporary Internet files with the following:

A. CCleaner, a free system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. There is a Slim version available as well at http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds – scroll down. It removes unused files (cache, temporary Internet files, etc.) from your system, allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. Remember when installing to uncheck the Yahoo toolbar, the pre-opted in Google toolbar and Chrome as default browser.

B. Download TFC by OldTimer to your desktop.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/file/187-tfc-temp-file-cleaner-by-oldtimer/
· Please double-click TFC.exe to run it. (Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator).
· It will close all programs when running, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.
· Click the Start button to begin the process. Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two. Let it run uninterrupted to completion.
· Once it’s finished it should reboot your machine. If it does not, please manually reboot the machine yourself to ensure a complete clean.

  1. You can try an Avast Repair:
  • Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > Avast Antivirus.
  • Scroll down and choose Repair function in the pop-up window.
  • Reboot.

  1. I suspect that the repair may not work, and you most likely will need to do an Avast uninstall and clean install (but it is worth trying the Repair first). Here is how to do the uninstall/clean install:

  2. Save a copy of Avast and save it to your HDD:
    http://www.avast.com/download-software – all products (Free, Pro, AIS)

  3. Download the Avast Uninstall Utility http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe and save it to your HDD.

  4. Disconnect from the Internet at this time.

  5. Go to Control Panel and uninstall Avast through Add/Remove Programs if possible and reboot.

  6. If Step 4 fails, boot into Safe Mode (hit F8 repeatedly) and run the Avast Uninstall Tool. Uninstall ALL previous versions and products of Avast one at a time and reboot until you have completed each one.

  7. Reboot.

  8. Install the newest version of Avast and reboot.

  9. Get Internet access and register your copy or add the license key for Free, Pro, or AIS.
    Free – http://www.avast.com/registration-free-antivirus.php

  10. Update the Avast definitions.

Once things are working properly, create a system restore point and if possible do an image backup.

Let us know if you have any questions. Thank you.

3

You have to wait longer (couple of minutes), this can take a while. :wink:
asyn

4

I have updated my profile to reflect that I’m using Avast 6. This was not a fresh 5>6 update,
I’ve been running the latest six since it was released (not the beta version).

Normally, when you do a restore in XP, the restore UI appears within a few seconds
after you type in your logon credentials, and it adds an entry to the system events
(which you can see in the event viewer) telling of the success or otherwise.
Neither the screen or the event message appeared.

This is the second time this has occurred since I updated to Avast 6.
Only allowing the system restore re-boot to safemode allowed it to complete.

Avast, as far as I can tell, is running normally again, it seemed to recover by itself.
I have added AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=180 to the avast5.ini in case the update is a factor.

5

Thanks for updating your Signature. :wink:

I also have this setting. Monitor the situation and see how things work for you. Report back if there is a problem if/when it occurs, otherwise you can report that everything is resolved in a few days to close the thread.

If you haven’t already, you may also want to do some “housecleaning” on your machine by cleaning the temporary Internet files and defragging. Let us know if you have any additional questions. Thank you.