I put Avast on a Windows Vista machine recently, it seemed ok at first. Then a few days later it started reporting that some services had not started, clicking on the button to resolve this did nothing.
After reading a few posts I decided to uninstall and do a clean install (in safe mode), since doing this the machine will boot, but post user login it stops, no desktop. When I removed Avast it booted cleanly again. Anyone seen anything like this before or get any suggestions?
I’d rather keep with Avast than some other product but if I can’t use the PC then that’s not much use
Update - used MSConfig to stop the Avast service and startup entry, rebooted normally and the machine starts ok.
Thanks will take a look, started the service manually after it started so I’m doing a full scan first.
Still got that darn message “Some shields are off” but it won’t start them and I can’t see anywhere in the tool to indicate what one that will be. The machine is off the network for the time being.
Well the full scan came back clean, I then ran the repair as suggested.
My current state is that I have had to set the Avast service to manual (I’ve not tried delayed start yet) else post login windows is getting itself in a complete mess. I get to login but the desktop never renders.
On the plus side this time Avast is not reporting that anything is wrong with it (once I logged in and started the service of course).
It’s not an ideal situation, but then neither is it being Windows Vista : with appropriate hibernation and removal from network as required I’ll manage things for now while I contemplate my re-imaging options.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think that it’s this version of Windows that’s at the heart of the issue (have the same Avast on both Win7 and 8.1 elsewhere with none of this).
Thanks for the advise Eddy, I think my conclusion is that my Vista instance is in a state where I don’t trust it…
The service will start in delayed mode, though once again Avast start reporting a security problem, which eventually disappeared after it reported it had updated the virus definitions.
I think realistically the only thing left for this instance is a rebuild, even though the virus scans are coming back clean it’s exhibiting some quirks so I’ve disabled all the network cards. In the meant time I’ve put the machine on a dual boot so from the new OS the scans are coming back clear also.
In terms of my problems I think I’m done, if I want to use Vista (who ever wanted to?) then I’ll have to re-build it.
The service will start in delayed mode, though once again Avast start reporting a security problem, which eventually disappeared after it reported it had updated the virus definitions.
That is something to be expected. avast starts and it notices that it is not up to date resulting in giving a warning. I wouldn't worry about that.