Avast Shell Extension

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello,

I’m using Avast Free Antivirus (latest version) on Windows 10 x64. My situation is the following:
Yesterday afternoon I suddenly started experiencing an awkward problem - when I right-clicked an object, Windows Explorer suddenly froze (it didn’t happen every time, I’d say it was random). I’ve been using Avast Free Antivirus for years and such thing had never happened to me before. I decided to put “symptoms” in Google and what it said was it might be a problem with shell extensions. As advised, I downloaded the ShellExView and did the test (disabling the extensions and seeing which might be xausing problems). To my surprise, it turns out that the Avast Context Menu is the culprit. After I disabled it, the problem seems to disappear. I thought that it is impossible that the Antivirus is causing such problem and reinstalled it. After the reinstall the problem started occuring again, and it disappeared after I disabled the Avast Context Menu.

And here comes my question:
Can I keep the Avast Context Menu (and Icon Overlay Handler - when the Context Menu is disabled, automatically so is the Icon Overlay Handler) disabled? Is it safe? Will Avast still be running in the background and I will be provided the same level of protection as before?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

2

I am running Windows 11. I have a problem with Premium Security. The new version of this premium security 23.9.6082 (build 23.9.8494.792) Such a problem arose with this new update. Microsoft visual runtime error. When I press OK, the desktop goes away and comes back after a few seconds. It appears when I start Explorer. It doesn’t happen all the time, sometimes, but it happens very often. Please appeal to the developers of Avast. Please solve it. I’ve been trying to find the source of the problem for 3 days. When I uninstall Premium Security, the problem goes away, but when I install it, it starts happening again. The link contains my computer’s properties, explorer dmp files and a picture of the error. Thanks.

https://mega.nz/file/AVNEQbpZ#_-xJ_Cd4KcRerf_xhmB3gsltoS7KOciH276B3d0Q9Gs

3

Bülent KAYABAŞ:

Thank you for the memory dumps, but the guilty module is C:\Program Files\StartAllBack\StartAllBackX64.dll

4

wikszefu:

Can you please create a crash dump of frozen explorer.exe, you can do it using task manager. you can use Avast FTP for upload.
https://support.avast.com/en-eu/article/ftp-file-upload/#pc

Thank you

5

I just uploaded the dmp file on Avast/incoming ftp : file name explorer.exe.7152.dmp

On Win 7 : Right click on one of the Desktop icon => Event :

Explorer.EXE
6.1.7601.23537
57c44efe
msvcrt.dll
7.0.7601.23403
56f58ae0
40000015
000000000002a89e
1bf0
01d9ec5eeeb0fdf1
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
C:\Windows\system32\msvcrt.dll
f4e03143-5852-11ee-9e8f-b42e993168e5

6

Thank you lucasfrance, in your case Avast seems to be the cause. We will fix it.

7

Could you please send me step-by-step instructions on how to do a crash dump? I’m not so good in the IT stuff

8

Hello wikszfu,

[ol]- Execute task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc)

  • Click on “Details” tab, sort processes by name
  • Search for “explorer.exe” process
  • Select “Create dump file” item in context menu of the process[/ol]

Thank you

9

So in my case the freezing looks like that: all the elements of the explorer disappear and after a second they come back. So I can create a dump file after the elements come back. Is that OK?

10

It looks like normal crash. Explorer.exe was restarted automatically by system. Manual dump file is not necessary in this case. The dump file should be created by system automatically in %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps folder with name explorer.exe.#pid#.dmp

11

Seems to be fixed with the 795 micro-update !

THANK YOU