After patiently trying to get help getting with my Avast free edition to stop requiring constant def stamp loading by clicking the program update button and waiting for it to finally connect, I have decided to try and uninstall it and use another program.
I went to Add or Remove, clicked uninstall, rebooted, deleted the residual Alwil folder, searched the registry for other pieces to remove, most of which I got an error message with saying they could not be removed.
These parts include:
Asynchronous Virus Monitor
Standard Shield Support
Network Shield Support
LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS
As you can imagine, this is very annoying for me to have these parts lingering, and not knowing how to remove them, or what conflicts they might cause with any other antivirus program when I install one.
Does Avast offer a special uninstall tool for their antivirus program? Should I reinstall Avast, then try to use Avast’s uninstall utility rather than Add or Remove?
I actually just did that, after doing a search for Avast uninstall utility.
I reinstalled Avast, used the default folder as always, downloaded the utility onto my desktop, clicked uninstall (it says remove in the instructions, which is wrong), rebooted after it said it had successfully uninstalled Avast 4 (including the registry).
It not only left the Awil folder in my Program Files folder, it left the same entries in the registry that were the problem mentioned above, which STILL WON’T manually remove from the registry.
It’s bad enough that I went through a lot of aggravation with the constant def stamp downloading just to be able to get on the net, but now it won’t even wipe off my drive? This !@#$%&* program acts more like a virus than a virus remover!
I’m sorry that you’re having problems with avast!, but this really isn’t what usually happens. I have installed/uninstalled avast more than 10 times to try other AV’s and never had any problems. Try removing Norton & Panda, then you’ll see real trouble. I have uninstalled Panda a year ago, cleaned the registry, removed hidden Panda files and still security center recognizes 2 AV’s & Firewalls on my system!
Now, try a decent registry cleaner & remove everything that has to do with avast. I recommend:
Spyros
Thanks, I just DLed it, I’ll let you know if it works. I also emailed Avast’s support team about this.
Igor,
Sorry if you think I’m too upset about this, but I have been really quite patient about this. If you’d take a look at the two full pages my last thread involved, I think you’d see why I’m upset. It got to the point where nobody could tell me why I’m still having to constantly update the Avast program to get the def stamp to load before, and often during surf sessions, and now this uninstall problem.
Fortunately I can think rationally enough even when upset to try to find other possible solutions. My anger is often what leads me to the right decisions, not the wrong ones, which I much prefer to stumbling along for months succumbing to something that’s not working right for me. I’m not implying it doesn’t work well for you or others, but obviously it’s not working for me, for whatever reason.
Calm down… this is a known problem with Windows Registry legacy keys.
You must delete one by one, from the bottom to the root key.
I mean, go to the values, one by one, delete it. When the key is empty you could delete it.
Take care working with your Registry and do not delete what you can’t. Better is backing up the keys before.
Spyros,
well I tried the jv16 Powertool, and at first I thought it was working to uninstall everything the registry would not, but all of the stuff I saw in the registry before is still there:
Asynchronous Virus Monitor
Standard Shield Support
Network Shield Support
LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS
avast! Antivirus
avast Web Scanner
LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS_WEB_SCANNER
There’s actually a few others in there too I think. If and when I finally get this out of my system for good, I will absolutely NEVER install any Avast products again, be there name followed by ! or * or whatever!
God forbid the only solution to be formatting, because they will most certainly get an earfull in the email that follows if that is the case.
Hi.
Have you stopped and disabled the avast services in the Services Panel? Are you running XP? In this case, have you deactivated the System Restore? Tried to uninstall Avast in Safety Mode (hit F8 before the system start completely)?
Tech,
The entries shown below are the only two entries I see under LEGACY, in the order I’ve listed them. They each have a 0000 subfolder. If what you say is correct, I should be able to delete the subfolder for LEGACY_AVAST!_WEB_SCANNER, then LEGACY_AVAST!_WEB_SCANNER, then the subfolder for LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS, then LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS, which I just tried, and none of them would remove.
LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS
LEGACY_AVAST!_WEB_SCANNER
It appears I’ll have to wait for Avast’s email response on this, as I’m striking out on this issue as well as the def stamp loading problem I had before.
Your suggestion being the advice to remove the LEGACY keys from the bottom up? I don’t see that post now, but yes I tried that, and no I’m not using any other antivirus. AVG was the one I used prior to this, and I not only uninstalled it before installing Avast, I removed it completely from the registry.
I’m afraid you keep on repeating the same, but still failing to provide any useful information.
So, I ask again: what exactly are you trying to remove from registry? What is the FULL path… and what is the exact message you get when you try?
Additionally, I really don’t understand the hystery about a few registry keys. To me, it seems like there’s something rather “strange” about your system that prevents the keys from being removed - but still, what is the problem in having a few keys left? You have thousands of useless keys and values in your registry since the moment you install the OS… why would you want to format it? ???
I’m talking about deleting FIRST the values, see the example under LEGACY_AVAST!_WEB_SCANNER.
After the ‘folder’ is empty. Delete it.
It’s not a problem of avast! It’s a protection of Windows Registry Legacy drivers…
Delete the values, one by one, then delete the folder.
What you are saying here seems to echo what some have said, at least in the sense of deactivating the Avast services, which I think you mean before uninstalling?
I don’t know what you mean by uninstalling in safety mode and hitting F8 though, or what System Restore has to do with it.
Maybe the tech guys at Avast when they answer my email can put it in easier to understand terms. I’ve only been using a PC for about 4 yrs now.
OK Tech, what exactly do you mean by example under LEGACY_AVAST!_WEB_SCANNER? Are you saying to delete the LEGACY keys last, and what folder are you referring to?
Also, some are saying to deactivate the Avast services, is this something I should do before uninstalling?
I know you guys know a lot about this, but you’re trying to explain it to someone that has only been using PC for 4 years, only a couple of those years have I even tried to do any registry stuff, mostly this last year in fact.
It seems to me though, if someone offers a free program for the general public to try, they ought to have a better uninstall utility for it, so you don’t have to be an entry level programmer just to uninstall it.
Well, I got a response from Avast’s so called tech support via email, and although I specifically said both Add or Remove and the Avast uninstall utility left me with registry entries that could not be removed, they guy says he’s sorry their uninstall utility leaves some registry keys behind, and to manually delete them!
Clearly they don’t have a clue how to offer tech support, let alone read a tech request from someone that tries to explain things in simple terms. I’m wondering at this point if he or anyone there even knows anything about the LEGACY built in removal protection that has been talked about here.
I have tried to remove values from these keys before removing the key itself, and still no luck.
The jv16 powertool registry finding tool shows no Alwil or Avast entries after using it to find, then delete entries under those searches, and still they show up in the regedit.
I’m about to get to that Igor, but first I have to go back into the regedit and extensively search for one at a time and write down all the Avast entries that won’t delete, although after reading this guy’s letter, you think they’d know all of them by heart by now! :
Meanwhile, I thought I’d show you this, just to give you an idea why I’m upset. This is the kind of thing that should be disclosed BEFORE talking up a product on it’s download page. I never had this problem uninstalling AVG.
Dear (My name),
spam is an unsolicited bussines mail, but i understand why you are
angry. Strange thing is, that our cleaner: http://www.avast.com/eng/down_cleaner.html does not clean all avast!
remains, as it is written to do it. Can you please precise, wich
registry entries are not removed by it? Anyway, please delete these
entries manually, and forgive us this failure.
Best regards,
David Podracky - avast! support team
Are you noting the “as it is written to do it”, and “failure” parts???
Although the guy sounds apologetic and sincere, I would have much rather that sincerity had come BEFORE I DLed the product, free or not.
Honestly, right now you seem to be the only one (amongst milions of avast! users) having this problem - so you really cannot expect an “oracle” predicting your troubles.
But in general, I would say that if you cannot delete the registry keys “manually” (using regedit), you cannot expect the uninstaller to be able to delete them. If the operating system doesn’t allow regedit to delete the keys, it won’t allow it to the uninstaller either.
As I don’t know the error message (when deleting the key), it’s just a guess - but I’d say that you don’t have enough user rights to remove the keys (are you logged on as administrator?), or you have some strange “monitor” installed that protects the keys (something like ProcessGuard, don’t know).
