I cannot disable Avast shields by right clicking on the Avast icon in the system tray and none of the selections work. The last time it worked was before the last update. I attempted to use the Windows uninstall program menu to fix the Internet Explorer problem where you cannot use Avast Online security to block tracking. After running change for browser security only I did click on change again then backed out and got a message that backing out of change would corrupt Avast. Under Active Protection in the Avast settings there is nothing.
Then I tried repairing Avast in the Windows uninstall program menu and I still cannot turn off the shields.
I get the Avast Component stop window that says an attempt has been made to turn off a key Avast module(All shields). This may be a legitimate action, but could also be the result of a malware attack. Do you want to continue?
Then I click Yes and when I go back to the shields control it has the same four selections to disable shields and a greyed out message on the top that all shields are on.
In addition, the Windows 7 action center has a message saying I do not have an antivirus program running on my computer and this is after restarting the PC twice since updating Avast.
I tried clearing the history by going to the action center then clicking on Maintenance and then View reliability history but the message is still there in the action center.
I tried to reset using the link above, restarted windows about three times, and turning the message off, and on in the action center but the message is still coming up.
A week ago I did a boot scan and Avast found Win64:Dropper-gen then moved it to the virus chest. I deleted the three Avast virus chest entries then ran the following malware/adware scanners after googling:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware free version-detected a PUP.Optional.OpenCandy then removed it then ran Malwarebytes again (after checking box to scan for rootkits) and did not find anything
Microsoft Safety Scanner-did not detect anything
AdwCleaner-detected the following registry entries, firefox, and google chrome information and fix them
Registry entries
Key Found : HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\apnstub_RASAPI32
Key Found : HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tracing\apnstub_RASMANCS
Google chrome
Found [Search Provider] : hxxp://search.aol.com/aol/search?q={searchTerms}
Found [Search Provider] : hxxp://www.ask.com/web?q={searchTerms}
Firefox
[ File : C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\osplslwh.default\prefs.js ]
Ran Avast boot scan again-got the Win64:Dropper-gen false positive message wscript.exe is infected by Win64:Dropper-gen [Drp], Move to chest: Error 42111 {The operation is not supported for this type of archive.} I tried using virustotal to scan this file but the file is too large for virustotal.
I had to set the Avast boot scan to move to virus chest in order to stop the boot scan from stopping on this false positive so it would complete the scan.
I only discovered the procedure to save logs from the three additional programs on the virus and worms forum yesterday and I would like to know this PC is free of any other malware that could have been delivered by Win64:Dropper-gen. Could Win64:Dropper-gen be the reason I cannot disable Avast shields? Should I continue this thread or start a new one on the virus and worms forum?
I also have problem with disabling/enabling shields with 10.0.2208, even after a clean install. There’s definitely problem with it. For example, when re-enabling shields, it sometimes fails to re-enable Webshield and rebooting computer seems to be only solution. Also, when stopping Avast service from services menu, process takes ages and then there’s an error after that.