Avast not loading

If I Start Avast, I get the flash screen and it scans the memory. It then says “Will Continue” and the splash screen goes out, but the screen showing Avast settings and to start the scan does not appear. If I then try and start Avast again I get a “Transparent” context menu which does not respond and I have to reboot to get rid of it. I have Windows XP SP2, 512 mb RAM

Do you have (or had in the past) any other antivirus in your computer? Which one?
Any skin application like WindowBlinds?
Did you change anything deeply into Internet Explorer settings?
If you run ashsimp2.exe from avast folder, will it work?

Hi Tech, I was running AVG before Avast but to the best of my knowledge it has been completely removed (I have even run Regseeker to clear any orphan files) i don’t have any skin strange skin applications and I haven’t changed anything in IE.
ashsinp2.exe seems to work just fine. I have to say that the problem I have does not seem to occur every time.
Thank you for your interest, I seem to be at a loss.

Can you try to repair your installation?
Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove. Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair). You must be connected to the internet while repairing.

If this does not help, can you uninstall / boot / install / boot again?

Will do all that and come back this afternoon.

I have just run “Repair” but it may be some time before I can be sure that it has worked, as I said it seems to be an intermittent problem,so please bear with me. Thank you.

Since running “Repair” I have launched Avast 5 times and rebooted twice without any problems. It looks as though that has done the tri, but if I have further problems I will post again. I thank you for your advice, I do like the program, I think it is very versatile and does a great job. ;D

Sorry guys, it’s done it again. It runs through the “Test memory” says " Will continue" then nothing. I worked OK after I looged off and then on again. Any more ideas? :frowning:

Disable things from loading when Windows starts that are not needed for the system to work properly.
If the problem still persist, write down what is running at that time and see if you can find a pattern.

Please read the start of this post, you have asked that before.

Thanks I will try that, in respect of my last post I think I got back to the start of my thread in error. Sorry.

Sorry, too many posts, few sleep hours…
Anyway, there are some other open threads now that are related to this problem. Maybe the solution comes…

Maybe here comes the answer:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=17258.0

I think I may have solved the problem, although I need to continue testing for a while to make sure. I am running Zone Alarm Free, and I have turned the Anti Virus monitor Off. ZA was not recognising Avast anyway and since I turned that mointor off Avast has loaded OK. I will keep watching the situation and let you know in case it may help others.

Sorry guys, that is not the answer. It has just failed to load again. :frowning:

I am now trying the link solution (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\REGSVR32.EXE ACTSKIN4.OCX) I will let you know.

:frowning: That didn’t work either. Any other ideas?

do you have translucent effects activated?
does the problem still occur when you de-activate skins for simple interface?

Yes I did but it didn’t change anything. Sorry to say I have unistalled Avast and reinstalled AVG. I didn’t really want to do that, but felt it was too much hassle. The only clue I can give now that may in future help others is that when I was uninstalling I got a message that a file was not loaded and could not be uninstalled. Unfortunately I didn’t see which file. but since I had already “Repaired” twice and reinstalled once I didn’t want to persue it any further. Thank you all for your interest in my problem.