I installed avast for my mom a month or two ago, and it was working great, but lately when she turns the computer on, avast pops up and wants to reboot the computer. When it does that, it just gets stuck in a loop sometimes. reboot, ask for reboot. reboot, ask for reboot.
If we don’t reboot, she says her email doesn’t work.
The avast version is up to date, 4.5.549, running on windows 98.
Could you try a rapair of avast, done by going to Start>settings>control pannel>Add/remove programs/Avast>click change/remove then choose repair near the bottom.
If that doesn’t work could you try to uninstall avast, reboot, reinstall avast, reboot.
–lee
I have done all that now, and still get the same problem.
After I uninstalled avast and rebooted (several times, just for fun) Firefox would no longer work. I could double click the icon, but nothing would pop up, and process explorer (www.sysinternals.com) didn’t show any process running. I reinstalled firefox, and it is working now.
After I reinstalled avast, and rebooted. it did not have the icon in the system tray. I tried to turn on the resident protection in the main avast interface, but it was extremely slow, and rest itself after I set it to high.
I rebooted, and the icon appeared in the system tray. A popup appeared that said the virus database had been updated. A short while after that, a popup said that avast needed to reboot the computer.
I rebooted, and the same thing happened.
When you re-installed avast, did you use the installation file from the first installation? It may of been corrupt.
Also are you running any other Antivirus on the computer at the same time as avast?
–lee
No I re-downloaded from the avast web site:
http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe
There is no other AV software… There is an old zone alarm, quicktime, and items pertaining to video, sound, camera in the system tray.
To the best of my knowlege, there is no spyware on this machine. I’ve used ad aware, and I have scanned a the usual startup hook by hand, as well as investigate all running processes by hand using process explorer, and I do not see any improper dll’s running on any process.
The requested reboot is intermittent. Sometimes it requests a reboot, sometimes not. It has even requested a reboot before I get past the windows login screen.
At this point I’m kind of curious if the order of program execution during startup varies, and is somehow affecting things. I may try upgrading zone alarm.
zone alarm appears to be unrelated… I uninstalled it and still got a reboot request.
It is still very inconsistant.
Is there a log file anywhere that might explain why it wants to reboot?
It appears to be related to when it checks for updates. I see that “ask for reboot when needed” is checked. When is a reboot needed? Surely not after every update?
Reboot is only needed if there is a program update or if you have add/remove a provider.
Then why is it asking for a reboot all the time. It’s up to date.
Looks like the update didn’t went as it should, or Windows has a problem.
Try this:
After I uninstalled avast and rebooted (several times, just for fun) Firefox would no longer work.That could indicate a Windows problem.
Typical reply for this forum, but at the moment, avast is the only trouble maker. I’m tired of constantly having trouble with avast, only to have the blame laid on someone else.
So you blame Avast while it wasn’t even there! Why not try to solve the problem and do as I suggested?
We are only trying to help in the best way we can. But if that is not what you want… Why did you come here in the first place?
Please, try to be not offensive for the ones which is trying to help…
I read all the thread and can only say the same…
avast works perfectly on Windows 98. You say that At this point I’m kind of curious if the order of program execution during startup varies, and is somehow affecting things.. This could be the reason. ZA and avast can interfere each other. Did you try Startup Delayer to a proper way (order) of program to load?
Configure your settings how you want them, right click on tray icon and select Stop On-Access Protection and Exit, now restart your computer and see if it has saved your settings and stop asking for reboot. Some services could be wrongly ended (killed) and then the settings were not saved.
I’ve done everything requested, and more. I have tried to get avast working properly in several occasions. Sometime it works fine, but on some systems it develops problems.
When I come here, the only help I get is “repair, reinstall” and if that doesn’t work, it must be the OS, or I’m doing something else wrong.
Last time, after getting this response, I yanked avast off and put something else on; later, I checked back and it turns out that some files were indeed omitted from the avast distribution. (.NET runtime)
I’ve spent over 6 hours today, rebooting, reinstalling, debugging, and fussing with this computer.
The only thing that has made everything work right has been to uninstall avast, and switch to AVG for virus protection.
I now have no problems. No system lockups, no reboots. Avast was the only thing malfunctioning on this system.
Ok, now, on scanning below, I see the scanreg instructions. Somehow, before my last post, all I saw was “That could indicate a Windows problem.” Unfortunately, I have run out of time, as I need to leave town.
Did you try my last suggestion?