Avast 8 "Not enough storage to process this command" during update

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

To start with I have a VERY old computer running Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 with 512 MB RAM. The good news is that I was able to install the latest version 8.0.1497 of Avast! Free and it seems to be working fine. The problem is that when the automatic definitions update ran it failed so I turned off the automatic updates and tried updating by hand from the interface. That failed as well with the error message “Not enough storage to process this command” I found a couple of forum messages that suggested downloading the update from the Avast! website and installing it by hand which I did but when it ran all I got was a small window with 2 folder images and a thermometer bar indicating files were being copied but I never got an installation program interface as the website indicated I would and when the program ended it said “VPS database is already up to date” so nothing happened. The engine and definitions are currently 130902-0 according to the interface so my question is what to do next? There are no errors per say only that I can’t update the definitions. The forum articles I found all refer to version 4 so I’m not sure where my problem fits into all this since I downloaded the latest version as I indicated above.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program including running the cleanup program I downloaded from the Avast! website but that didn’t help. The files that I downloaded were directly from the Avast! website and not from a 3rd party download site so they should be current and valid.

Am I out of luck given the limitations of my computer or is there some other way to get my system up to date after which I assume the automatic updates will work correctly based on the other posts I found.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

Repair avast!:

  1. Control Panel → Add/Remove programs → avast!
  2. Click on ‘Repair’.
  3. Follow instructions.
  4. Reboot.
3

“Not enough memory” can mean three things normally.

  1. Not enough physical memory.
  2. Not enough drive space.
  3. Not enough room for the swapspace.

Possible solutions:

  1. Put in more memory. Even if it is a old system, you should be able to put in a total of 1Gb ram (or even 2Gb)
  2. Delete all temporary files and remove applications you don’t need.
  3. Check the settings for the swapspace to “let windows handle it”

I suggest you check the 2 first. How much free disk space do you have?
If there is enough, check 3.

4

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the repair option but I received an error at the end of that indicating that packages were corrupt and I don’t really want to add memory since I only use this computer as a backup but I still want to be protected.

I was able to resolve the problem with the following steps:

  1. Uninstalled Avast
  2. Rebooted in Safe Mode
  3. Ran the Avast uninstaller program I downloaded from the Avast website
  4. Rebooted
  5. Uninstalled ZoneAlarm firewall (version 7 which is the last version to work with W2k)
  6. Rebooted
  7. Ran CCleaner to remove temporary files, etc.
  8. Ran RegSupreme Pro to clean up the registry
  9. Rebooted
  10. Downloaded the latest version of Avast from the Avast website
  11. Reinstalled Avast which said it was successful at the end of the install
  12. There was a red “X” on the Avast icon in the tray so I confirmed that the Avast service was started but I couldn’t run update, scan, etc. through the program
  13. Rebooted
  14. Same as #12 above
  15. Reinstalled Avast again without uninstalling the previous install
  16. Rebooted
  17. Registered the product
  18. Everything now seems to be working fine, the program updated itself successfully, no red “X”, etc.

I’m not sure what happened but after I uninstalled both Avast and ZoneAlarm, cleaned up my system files and registry and reinstalled Avast it still wasn’t working. Reinstalling the second time and / or registering seems to have fixed the situation but I have no idea why. Anyway, the last step is to reinstall ZoneAlarm to see if that breaks anything but regardless, I was finally able to get Avast to install and update successfully.

Thanks,
Jeff

5

Good to hear the protection is working again. And thank you for telling how you where able to solve it. It may help others.
Sometimes after installing a application it takes a few reboots before it is working. It could be the reboot (16) have solved it.

Before installing ZA, check if your router/modem already has a firewall. If it has, there is no need for za.

6

My router does have built in firewall protection which works well for protecting against malicious inbound packets but I like having an internal firewall such as ZoneAlarm to monitor malicious outbound packets so if the anti-virus software misses something at least I can see and / or choke off suspicious outbound packets.

7

It is of course up to you if you want to use a software firewall also.
My external firewall is checking both inbound as well as outbound so I have no need for one.

Anyway, it is working as it should now and that is what matters.
You may however want to update avast to version 2014-RC3