Avast 8 Causing freeze ups and reboots

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

This is pretty general but I wanted to give others an opportunity to post if they are having similar issues with the new Avast 8 Free version.

I have run into two systems now that the new Avast 8 caused problems and had to be removed and replaced with another antivirus program. No apparent reason for conflicts or ortherwise on either computer.

One was a laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium x64. This was a fresh install of Vista. The installation of Avast 8 seemed to install without any problems and completed the process. But once I rebooted the computer, it froze solid about 3 seconds into the boot process. Didn’t even get to the Windows splash screen, etc. The scrolling bar at the bottom during the boot process just stopped and computer was completely froze up. Had to hold power button to turn off system. Tried everything from booting to safe mode (which worked) and running a repair within Avast but nothing solved the problem. Had to uninstall Avast completely for computer to boot normally again.

The second computer was running Windows 7 Home Premium x64. Version 7 of Avast had no problems. Removed version 7 completely before installing a clean version of Avast version 8. System was a clean install again of Windows 7 with all current updates performed. As soon as version 8 of Avast was installed, again installation was flawless and updated perfectly. The second I rebooted the computer, it got stuck in an endless reboot loop. Again was able to boot safe mode ok. After much investigating and trial and error, had to removed Avast 8 in order for computer to boot successfully in normal mode again.

Only similarity between the two is both were x64 operating systems.

I realize there aren’t alot of specifics here but just wanted to alert someone that this is occurring with the new version 8.

I have been an avid Avast user for many years and recommend it to everyone I know but now it is getting tough to recommend when running across these two issues with 3 days time.

I am hoping that once the bugs are worked out and a new updated version is released to download, this may fix things and work again.

Another thing to note, I have it working on 3 other computers without any problems as of yet. Two are XP 32bit machines and one is Windows 7 x64.

Anyone else running into reboot issues like these???

2

Running Avast 8 Free on WinXP SP3. Updated, rebooted. Now my PC freezes when I try to copy a file using the context menu. PC does not restart using the PSU switch. I am accessing it via Windows Remote Connection, I’ll have to see it it re-occurs locally as well.

3

does this help anyway : http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=116242.msg902806#msg902806

OR

you guys could try installing avast 7 back again from: http://www.oldapps.com/avast_antivirus.php

4

My Win install is WinXP Pro SP3 32-bit.

I will try uninstall and install Avast 7 as I need to get back up and running again. Is there a rollback perhaps?

5

you can use the v8 removal tool first: www.avast.com/uninstall-utility

then download v7 from that link I gave

6

Cool tks will do!

7

Also finally gave up on Avast and un-installed, been a user since v3 but it’s become so bad I end up disabling Avast and rather have no protection than let it run and freeze up my laptop.

Used to be a pro user at some point but the firewall degraded my internet speed so badly I went back to being a free user after my subscription expired.

8

Good thinking, yes I disabled all shields and now the system is stable again. I’ll just have to have unprotected relations with that PC until a fix is released.

9

Epsi and energized instead of having a unprotected machines I would recommend going to back to v7 and waiting for program update fix on v8