Can't turn avast back on!!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

??? ok so maybe i am completely stupid when it comes to computers, but i can’t figure out how to turn avast back on…my license key expired, so i got a new one, entered it in, slid the bar over to high, and still can’t turn it back on…i do not have the icon in the system tray, have tried the repair in add/remove programs, and still can’t turn avast back on…i am about to uninstall the program, but REALLY don’t want to have to do that again…PLEASE HELP :-\

2

You shouldn’t have to turn it on, it is a resident scanner, and changing the sensitivity won’t suddenly turn it on.

Insert Registration Key - Video

Did you follow that method of input and more importantly was it accepted and not reported as invalid ?

Also see.
Q: My licence key has expired, what to do? http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-registration-license.html#idt_1442
Q: “Invalid license number”. Why? http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-invalid-license-number.html

Don’t uninstall just yet, if needs be follow this procedure, first having downloaded the required programs.

Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

  1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can’t do that start from the next step), reboot.
  2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot. If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.
  3. install the latest version, reboot.
3

I did the first couple things you told me to try, but i do not have the avast ball icon in my system tray…what i did was accidentally forgot to get a new license key in time and avast turned itself off and i got a license key, put it in, and it was accepted, i got the screen that did a startup scan, it ran thru successfully, but avast won’t turn back on…can anyone help on that?!?

4

avast doesn’t turn itself off if you don’t re-register, but you can’t update so the icon being gone is an entirely other issue.

With your attempts to uninstall/reinstall which failed I’m not too surprised the icon was missing, if only you had sought help here first.

So I suggest you do the clean reinstall as suggested and follow the steps exactly (print them off if needs be as you would be off-line doing this), that should get everything back to a running state. You would need to re-enter the key that you were emailed previously.

5

ok, i haven’t uninstalled/reinstall just yet…so can you tell me how to get the icon back in my system tray??

6
  1. Check the option in the Appearance tab of settings.
    or
  2. Repair your avast installation through Control Panel.
    or
  3. Make a link to ashdisp.exe in your startup folder
    or
  4. Add the path to ashDisp.exe into a value named avast! in the Windows Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
    See picture here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=26155.msg213891#msg213891

If that does not help, please, uninstall, boot, install again, boot.

What other security based software do you have that might block new startup entries, e.g. Spybot S&D (TeaTimer), AdAware (AdWatch), SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor (StartUpGuard), PrevX, WinPatrol, ProcessGuard, etc.?

7

Thanks for helping, I don’t have any other spyware software on this system…don’t know what is going on…thanks again for all the help.

8

At least, repair your avast installation just to be sure it’s running ok…