I have an old WinXP (yes, I know, I need to upgrade it & am working on it!) that runs what I believe to be the last working version of Avast Free Antivirus (18.8.2356 build 18.8.4084.409) for that OS. Periodically though the definition update fails and reports that the host is unreachable, after having gone through the initialisation & DNS resolving stages and never works again. I would put this down to external issues (no Internet connection, DNS resolution problems, etc.) except for the fact that uninstalling & then reinstalling the program immediately resolves the problem and updates work again for a period before the issue repeats itself. Not a big issue, just more getting fed up regularly having to uninstall/reinstall and wondered whether anyone else had experienced similar and/or have some kind of more permanent fix?
First, I’m an Avast user and not an Avast Team member.
It is going to be hard to find others still using XP and Avast 18.8.
It may be that you don’t need to do an uninstall/reinstall, I would suggest first try a system restart. Then try an Avast Repair if the restart didn’t resolve it.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and totally get it that I’m clutching at straws - just thought it worth a try!
System restarts don’t make any difference and the only way I have been able to try a ‘Repair’ is by going through the ‘Add or remove programs’ from the control panel and using it as part of the remove action. However this either fails to run with a message to try again in Safe mode or completes successfully but makes no difference to the Update process.
Looks like I’m stuck with uninstalling/reinstalling!
Thanks again for trying though.
You’re welcome.
Unfortunately with old OS and Avast versions, peoples memories are short.
I think I ended on Avast 18.5 on XP as I and some others were having issues with XP and greater than 18.5, so I never actually installed/updated to 18.8.
There has been a problem with Avast18.8 virus definitions after January 2025. Since then, you’ll find that WimXP will run much slower because an Avast component, Avastsrv.exe, is constantly using high CPU. The current Avast versions for Windows 7 to 11 don’t do this.
View my thread from back then:
https://community.avast.com/t/avast18-8-acting-oddly/881416
Also, you’ll find that Avast takes a long time to initialize. It will report ‘unsecured’ for many minutes, then finally ‘protected’
Since Avast18.8 is no longer supported, expect no relief from Avast