I tried for more than 10 days to make my PC run smoothly after updating AIS from v8 to v9 but without success… several programs hangs! Skype is not usable cause every time I press the button “CALL” the system hangs completely (tried to reinstall Skype as well, but no improvements). I experienced hangs with Windows Media Player, iTunes, PopCap Games, Garmin Express etc. (long list) … and every time the only way out is to hard reset the PC. This makes the system not usable at all with this version for me!! :o
I tried to reinstall several times, with also manual cleaning:
- used the Avast tool
- cleaned the registry (with CCleaner and TuneUp utilities)
- removed every directory or file that had the name “Avast” or “Awil” as you recommended (including full cleaning of Prefetch directory and WinSxS Avast Policies and Manifests!)
- removed the firewall miniports and VPN devices that still existed (!?!? why the cleaner does not remove them??)
- rebooted and defragmented the registry for all users
I tried to troubleshoot a little the problem deactivating the shields one by one or all of them… but without improvements! Even with all the shields and firewall set to “OFF” the programs/system still hang (and that’s weird!!!). As soon as I uninstalled completely AVAST everything restarted to work smoothly again… then I installed AIS v8.0.1497 and everything continued to work smoothly and without problems!
On another PC I have Avast on another PC (Win XP Pro SP3 as well) I have Avast Free v9 and I did not experience any problem (noticed that it is even lighter and faster than v8).
Considering that the Firewall was completely rewritten from scratch on v9 it seems possible to me that something at low level (e.g. filter driver) in the “firewall area” is still buggy/robust in v9 (that would explain also why I experience hangs even with all the shields off).
Other users has the same issues? I’ve seen that today 9.0.2007 is out, does anybody experience some improvements? I’ve seen that the change log for this version does not address specific Firewall issues (that I suspect may be the real problem!)… :-[