avast 8 upgrade broke avast, help?

My avast 8 upgrade from 7 somehow got stuck in a very bad state.

This is on windows xp 32-bit

The avast UI icon starts but with an X and the actual service is not started.

I look in the windows services and avast is off but I cannot start it manually (and won’t start automatically).

I then manually downloaded avast 8 and tried to install it but it locks and crashes on part 2 of the install.

I saw a message at one point that it cannot install because avast is upgrading.

Is there maybe a flag that has to be cleared in the registry to allow it to manually install again over itself?

I am comfortable using regedit and such.

Thank you for any assistance.

Which avast!..?? (Free/Pro/IS/Premier)

Try a repair of avast:
XP - Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button and select Repair, click next and follow.

If that doesn’t work the failed update may have corrupted the current version, so it may be best to do a clean reinstall of avast 8 (this assumes you are using the free version):

  • Download the latest version of avast, 8.0.1483 http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (if you didn’t save your last download). Use that when you reinstall.

  • Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, aswClear.exe find it here and save it to your HDD (it has uninstall tools for all versions).

    1. Now uninstall avast! (using add remove programs, if you can’t do that start from the next step), reboot.- 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, it will reguest it be run from safe mode (and will handle the boot into safe mode), first for 7.x if previously installed and then for 8.0, once complete reboot into normal mode.- 3. install the latest version, reboot.

Sorry it’s avast free

The repair trick unfortunately hasn’t fixed it.

Going to try the full blown uninstall with aswclear

It’s really strange because the UI is 8.0 but after the repair it shows all the file info as 7.0

So it’s definitely stuck between versions.

Yes, sometimes there is an out of sync issue between what is reported as the build version and what is displayed, the repair usually resolves that. But this appears a little more complex, hopefully the clean reinstall of avast8 will do the job.

Actually, even after a clean uninstall, the fancy 8.0 installer is still very slow and times out.

How can I get 7.0 back

http://www.oldapps.com/avast_antivirus.php?old_avast=8431

Has anyone else under XP mentioned problems with a very slow install interface under 8.0 ?

I literally can count to 30 between setup panels.

It looks like it’s overwriting the native windows UI box with it’s own graphical UI, is there a way to maybe turn that off to see what is happening and maybe solve the delay?

Not yet, you’re the first who reports such an issue.

As you can tell from my signature I’m using XP Pro and don’t see any slow install, but I really don’t know what you mean by “a very slow install interface under 8.0” ?

When you mention the word ‘install’ and ‘interface’ together I don’t know if you only mean the installation process, which, yes there will be delays between the various steps of the installation, but that may be dependant on your system spec (CPU, RAM and any other applications running in the background, etc.). Any delay in my case was down to my answering/responding to selections and I usually do screen captures at every step documenting it in
case I have any issues to report.

That said when it is installed what does it matter how long the steps take, which makes me wonder if this isn’t something else you are talking about or you wouldn’t be considering avast 7. Which in essence had the same custom interface (but different look) and not a default windows UI.

So we really need more detailed information to be able to give meaningful help.

Believe it or not I am still struggling with this.

Avast 7 av free went though it’s paces but after reboot there is nothing there in the c:\program files\avast or avast software directories.

BTW I fortunately saved an avastconfig file, how do I restore that assuming I ever get this working again?

Whew, finally!

Just in case it helps anyone else, what I had to do was rip out all avast.

Then I had to go all the way back to Avast 5.1

Once it was running smoothly, I told it to upgrade the program, which jumped it to 8.0

Sigh, 5.1 was SO fast compared to 8.0, but yeah maybe less protection.

Avast is getting a little carried away, they need to make a light or LTS version.

Use avast uninstall tool at safe mode.

The latest Uninstall Utility aswClear.exe will ask you to run it in safe mode and will also handle the boot into safe mode.

I’ve been on another thread trying to solve Avast update problem, seems similar giving RPC error when trying to register. i’m on XP-PRO Sp3.
I’ve seen on other threads that people with XP-PRO were having issues.

[ol]- I’ve removed anything to do with security from my computer.
I’ve remove Avast using it’s installer in “safe mod”.
I’ve reinstalled a new downloaded version of Avast 8.
It works perfect, updates, all sub apps work perfect. BUT, when I shut off my computer & restart— the Avast in the tray has x, shows it isn’t started,
Won’t start from “resolve”(everything freezes with Resolve).
I tried the repair in the uninstall from control panel. It shows repaired but nothing changed, still un-started.
It also says my membership has zero days to register at the top of Avast control. But, shows I’m good until Mar 2014 in the body of control panel.

  • [/ol]

THE STRANGE PART, IN “WINDOWS SECURITY CENTER” IT SHOWS AVAST IS RUNNING FINE (it says Avast reports system is protected) BUT, AVAST ICON IN THE TRAY AND THE AVAST CONTROL PANEL SAYS IT’S NOT WORKING.
Please help I’ve been working on this for 7 days.

Well like I mentioned earlier, I solved my problem but in hindsight I think what has happened is Avast8 has changed so much there are two problems:

  1. it changes it’s loading order/hooks and conflicts with other services present in XP
  2. it install UI is getting far too bloated for XP

By uninstalling all traces of Avast and starting over with an ancient version, it corrected the service hooks and install UI problems - the upgrade method from old versions to newer Avast is different than starting from scratch and uses a semi-slient install method that works better on XP. It also seems to correct the loading order, at least for me.

I also disabled all “social” and community options in Avast, they are getting far too carried away with the constant extras but at least most of it can be disabled now.

I think they just need to give a native UI option that looks like the old Avast5 system for older hardware. I am not sure how people with screen readers even use the newer ones, it’s all a proprietary skin overlay.

I know this seems implausible but somewhere during this process it screwed up all my fonts and windows UI settings, I think it has to do with having to go to safe mode which I almost never do. Spent all day tweaking it back.

It’s a free product so trying not to get upset with Avast but if they break everything again for 9 I am going to just have to walk away. Between all the reboots and UI tweaking I lost four hours today messing with this.

I do like the software updater, nice way to gently nag people and keep systems more secure.

The remote access ability however is a bit scary, even if it’s disabled in the free version. I mean gee, remote access api inside an anti-virus, what could possible go wrong?