Avast preventing Paint Shop Pro 9 from running

system · 2017-04-06T23:09:29.000Z

Since the last major update (best estimate between March 11 and March 18) Paint Shop Pro 9 stopped working on my system. When I start it, it stalls before even the splash screen comes up and the process stays in some limbo, non-running state. The program is older (2004) but it has been running fine on XP, Vista, and Win 7 all along.

I’ve done a ton of testing… the final test being uninstalling Avast and seeing the program work again, then reinstalling Avast and finding it dead in the water. I even pulled out an old system with Avast from 2015 on it and it worked fine; after Avast was updated to the latest version, it stopped.

SO… I assume Avast is seeing some behavior it doesn’t like. How do I add this program to an exclusion list so that it can run again? I could not find any options to do that in the standard interface.

system · 2017-04-06T23:11:48.000Z

Adding info… Setting Avast off in Shields Control option for a time frame or even choosing “Disable Permanently” will not let the program run.

system · 2017-04-07T00:34:53.000Z

Adding more info… (and edit option here would be great

I tried adding both the directory and the program to the Settings → Exclusions list and it didn’t help.

Asyn · 2017-04-07T03:57:16.000Z

→ https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=197295.0

system · 2017-04-07T05:36:16.000Z

Thanks… looks like there’s no current solution and Avast doesn’t seem to give a hoot. Might be time to move to another product and dump this bloated mess.

Asyn · 2017-04-07T05:39:17.000Z

You’re welcome. (It should help to disable Avast self defense)

rednoise0 · 2017-04-07T19:05:54.000Z

Asyn post:6:

You’re welcome. (It should help to disable Avast self defense)

It does for me. Turning of the Self-Defense feature allows Paint Shop Pro and Notepad++ to run. But that’s not a tenable solution.

Spec8472 · 2017-04-08T04:05:36.000Z

rednoise0, what OS please?

Spec8472 · 2017-04-08T06:40:14.000Z

Problem was in shell extension, next version will contain the fix.

rednoise0 · 2017-04-08T17:24:50.000Z

Spec8472 post:8:

rednoise0, what OS please?

Sorry, I mentioned that in my other post but forgot to repeat it here. This is Windows XP (latest updates).

rednoise0 · 2017-04-08T17:29:20.000Z

Spec8472 post:9:

Problem was in shell extension, next version will contain the fix.

Do we know when that will be? Until that time I have to run with Avast Self-Protection turned off, which strikes me as worse than no protection at all.

I’m also still waiting for Avast to fix the main interface window, which is too large and un-resizable to fit on the screen of my small netbook, and therefore the controls are inaccessible. It was said here that that would be “fixed in the next version”… but it still hasn’t happened.

DavidR · 2017-04-08T17:39:55.000Z

rednoise0 post:11:

Spec8472 post:9:

Problem was in shell extension, next version will contain the fix.

Do we know when that will be? Until that time I have to run with Avast Self-Protection turned off, which strikes me as worse than no protection at all.

Well the self-defence module isn’t a first line of defence or possible a second or even third line of defence. First line of defence is likely to be the web shield, second line of defence the file system shield. Then you may even have that third line of defence in the behaviour shield. Only then if whatever has got through al of those would the self-defence module have a role.

So this isn’t a case of “worse than no protection at all” but something at the end of a chain of events.

system · 2017-04-09T01:35:20.000Z

Asyn post:6:

You’re welcome. (It should help to disable Avast self defense)

Asyn: THANK YOU for that tip. I can run the program now. I tried tweaking most everything else but it never occurred to me that Avast protecting itself would affect other programs. I don’t see how that correlates, but if it works, it works.

system · 2017-04-09T01:37:31.000Z

Spec8472 post:8:

rednoise0, what OS please?

Spec8472: I am having the problem on Vista SP2 and Win 7 SP1.

Any ballpark idea on when the shell extension will be updated? Is that something that happens once a week, or once a year?

Asyn · 2017-04-09T05:21:17.000Z

AvastUserMan post:13:

Asyn post:6:

You’re welcome. (It should help to disable Avast self defense)

Asyn: THANK YOU for that tip. I can run the program now. I tried tweaking most everything else but it never occurred to me that Avast protecting itself would affect other programs. I don’t see how that correlates, but if it works, it works.

You’re welcome.

Spec8472 · 2017-04-09T06:49:06.000Z

I am not sure about release date of Avast 17.4. but it is already in BETA stage, so I would say three weeks. We can also prepare a microupdate to fix this.

AvastUserMan post:14:

Spec8472 post:8:

rednoise0, what OS please?

Spec8472: I am having the problem on Vista SP2 and Win 7 SP1.

Any ballpark idea on when the shell extension will be updated? Is that something that happens once a week, or once a year?

system · 2017-04-17T02:13:45.000Z

Forgot to say thanks, Spec8472. I appreciate having a factory rep responding to posts!

system · 2017-05-09T02:58:54.000Z

Good News Avasts new version that came out May 3, 2017 now works. I had deleted Paint Shop 9 so I had to reinstall but all now fine…

Alikhan · 2017-05-09T10:11:35.000Z

junkmail101 post:18:

Good News Avasts new version that came out May 3, 2017 now works. I had deleted Paint Shop 9 so I had to reinstall but all now fine…

Thanks for the confirmation.

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