I followed your advice DavidR: temporarily disabled the self-defence module and deleted the VRDB from the integ file after and disabled VRDB. By this time according to Windows Explorer Avast had been taking up 315MB on disk – it now reads 300MB. However in the Windows Control Centre “uninstall program” page it reads 114MB, which I assume just refers to the size on disk of the program essentials.
1.My question: does 300MB represent the expected amount of disk usage 24 days after first installation?
2.Another question which I am sure you are all tired of – when is version 5 expected? (I am meanwhile happy with the current one.)
Use TreeSize http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_personal/ to check each folder.
But skins, logs, dumps, the virus database, etc. etc. could make the size grow up. I won’t worry about it.
The end of November is the schedule for version 5.
If you deleted the avast4\DATA\integ\avast.int file (the VRDB’s database file) then it shouldn’t be there so it shouldn’t be any size.
Even when mine was in use the avast.int file was about 12MB. So lets say your avast.int file was 15MB and you removed it that would leave 315-15=300MB as is being reported, which is correct. But it depends on if that is reporting size on disk which can be bigger than the actual file sizes. If you have a larger cluster size, (8, 16 or 32Kb) then if there are a lot of files which are smaller than the cluster size, the remainder is wasted space (and counts towards overall disk space) as nothing other than that file can go in there.
To start with it has nothing to do with 15 days of use, immediately after installation it would be quite big, but I can’t see how it would be that big, I have had avast on this my new system for a little over a year and it is reported as 108MB and windows add remove programs shows it as 106MB and that is close
The windows add remove programs can be very misleading at times when it comes to that type of information as it also shows avast is rarely used and was last used on 10 June 2009, which is rubbish.
My system is a Sony Vaio laptop running Vista Home premium with 222 GB free of 289, and GB RAM. Windows Explorer reads the Alwil as occupying 300GB, Add/remove reads 114 GB.
Sounds as if you have the similar values.
I am very pleased with Avast. Since January this year I have used AVG free which although solid only seemed to pick up cookies, most of which Firefox deals with adequately anyway. Then I had Avira PE which was better and did not seem to slow the system as much.
Avast is my favourite. As a back up I have Threatfire and of course the Windows Defender.
SORRY - I meant “My system is a Sony Vaio laptop running Vista Home premium with 222 GB free of 289 GB, and 4GB RAM. Windows Explorer reads the Alwil as occupying 300MB, Add/remove reads 114 MBB.” !!! NOT GB!
If you need to correct a post, you can use the ‘Modify’ button at the top right of each of your posts, obviously you don’t see the modify button in other peoples posts.
Sorry to be a bore: should I understand that my Windows Explorer value of 300MB for Alwil is too large? What is your Windows Explorer given value after more than a year?
The duration, I don’t believe has anything to do with the size, it certainly wouldn’t grow to that sort of size without changing some settings and or having had some large file/s sent to the chest.
So all I can suggest is using explorer to find files of unusually large sizes, some of the logs can grow quite large.
You can also restrict the size of some log files, Program Settings, Logging, ‘Log file size limit:’ see image. Also don’t change the default logging level (Notice) as that can also generate much more data and subsequently logs.
You are right: one log file - aswAr1 is 206.895 KB (note the dot as the laptop and instructions are in German where it was bought and where I live). I have corrected the value in Settings -log to 128 as in your example. Is it OK to delete the 206.895 KB?
I don’t remember tampering with the default settings! ???
There were 3 large System files in Chest reported as virus free - I attempted to restore them (“error”) before before deleting them - so I deleted them from Chest which will have reduced the size of Alwil on disk.
The Windows Explorer value is now 299 MB. Perhaps after a Restart it will be lower. From what you say it seems that the software was double-installed or something. Why is it that your WE and Remove/Add values are more or less the same? The latter is 114 MB here which is more likely, although, as you mentioned those values are often misleading.
Looks like I will have to deinstall it when Avast 5 comes out and start from scratch.
Some of the Setup files are large, but that is expected I suppose. What I usually do when I download new software is to delete the Setup.exe file after installation. I don’t remember if I did so in the case of Avast, if not where would it be?
So it’s 300MB, big deal. I mean, is your HDD only 4GB in size? Why bother? All drives these days are at least 80GB and over. And even there, 300MB is a drop in an ocean.
I appreciate your point, but as DavidR has illustrated the space occupied according to WE is well over twice what it should be.
I will not delete files on WE because none of them (as far as I can see - which, granted, may not be far enough!) explain this 300MB size over 114 or less.
First we can’t explain the differenced between explorer and add remove programs figures, as I already said it can be very inaccurate and I don’t take a blind bit of notice of what figures it mentions there.
The explorer, being a file system tool is more likely to be more accurate.
Now on to aswAr1.log:
I haven’t got aswAr1.log on my system (only the aswAr.log anti-rootkit scan log) and this is true for most people, but for some reason, some have this file and it gets very large. I don’t know why it is created, but once created it appears to be a cumulation of all the anti-rootkit scans, where the aswAr.log is the last anti-rootkit scan and is overwritten rather than added to.
There should be no problem in deleting the aswAr1.log other than you would first need to disable the self-defence module, avast Program Settings, Troubleshooting, to allow for deletion. There is every likelihood that it would be recreated on the next anti-rootkit scan and slowly grow again, so you may have to repeat that exercise.
Lastly, the System Files, a) aren’t very large, b) they are clean backup copies in case the originals become infected, c) leave them alone they are effectively for avast use and d) as you found windows will stop you from replacing the original in-place running files.
The All Chest Files collation of the three sections:
The only area you should be interested in is the Infected Files section, this is where the files detected by avast and selected by you to move to the chest are placed.- The User Files section is where the user can add files they suspect of being malware but not detected by avast.- The System Files section is where avast keeps back-up copies of important system files in case the original becomes infected (leave them alone).- The All Chest Files is a collation of the three sections.
Thanks.
The aswAr1.log - I have only run the anti-rootkit scan once in these past 26 days with Avast. I usually do that scan with the Threatfire which specialises in rootkit scans. I deleted after disabling the self-defence temporarily.
I deleted the system files from the chest anyway, with no adverse effects, and they have duly reappeared for the reason you gave. So I leave them alone.
I reset the logging file capacity limit to 128 which had been up at 1045 or some rediculous sum which I certainly did not enter. Perhaps that has something to do with the “bloat”.
Another thing that may have added was my tendency to click on the updating option for both iAVS and Program during the first week. This was pointless as it the system seems to be set on automatic and the updates come in daily like clockwork - and quickly when they do.
The Explorer value is still 300 and I shall live with it - the windows software must be in pretty good shape as the system has been well-maintained and I have been using it for 10 months from new.
As I say, when 5 comes along I shall reinstall Avast after thoroughly deinstalling 4.8.
Wrong, the avast anti-rootkit runs every day or rather 8 minutes after every boot. It also runs when you do a Standard or Thorough on-demand scan, so it runs multiple times even though you specifically don’t initiate it as it is an integral part of avast.
Though why the aswAr1,log is created is beyond me I can’t recall ever having it on either system since the anti-rootkit element was first introduced into avast 4.x.
As I said before the log file size doesn’t apply to all logs and this may be one of those cases where the file might legitimately need to exceed that limit.
Just to be thorough I reset the Report File setting to Overwrite Existing to see if that makes a difference.
Sorry to contradict myself: I have NOW (not earlier) deleted aswAr1 (206.895 KB) - and WE says Alwil is 98 MB down from 300, which sounds like a reasonable subtraction!! Progress, apparently, but it might decide to come back.
The update arrived as normal just after I made this deletion, so Avast lives with it.
As I have said I have no idea why it was created but it is a log of the anti-rootkit scanner.
I don’t believe analysis would serve any purpose, what is need is not what the contents are, but why it was created in the first place and as and avast user like yourself I have no idea why it was created.
So don’t bother to open it, just delete it from the recycle bin.
