A few days ago, I got an on-screen notice saying that there’s an update to Avast free anti-virus. I clicked to update, and it stalled in the first initializing stage. It never downloaded or updated anything. This happened many times over a few days. Now I’ve started getting a message that says that the version of Avast I have was unable to update the virus definitions. I’m assuming that leaves me vulnerable to new threats. I thought I would just reinstall the software, but when I click on the .exe, I get a message that says ‘installer cannot copy the installer binary to the avast! directory by calling ‘C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\setup\instup.exe’ executable (code 0xd8).’

Are these problems related? Where do I go from here?

I’m running Windows 7. I haven’t installed anything new in the last week (or changed my system settings). Thanks for your help!

  1. Download avast! Free Antivirus: http://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe
  2. Follow instructions: http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility (Run this tool for all prior installed avast! versions…!!)
  3. Reinstall avast! with the downloaded installer from point 1.
  4. Reboot.

That seems to have solved it! Thank you!

You’re welcome.