I run Avast v 4.7 home and it runs quite nicely thks very much I am doing maintenance throughout the log files on my system and would like to clear part of the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\Setup.log file. It has grown to about 1.5Mb - since early 2005 and I don’t think of any value to keep all of this info around. Avast Updates function properly on a regular basis…
I already tried to clear out all of the data except for the last 3 months in the file using notepad and, when I try to save the file, it tells me it can’t create the file in question, even after I terminated the program and all windows associated services. How would I go about doing such a thing? Do I need a special program to access/modify this file?
I have just opened my setup.log and using notepad selected July to Sept and deleted the selection and saved the file and exited notepad, reducing my log from 1.3MB to 442KB. I have administrator privileges on my log on user account if that has any difference.
Well for the life of me I can’t figure it out. There is by the way a second log file in C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\Setup.log which I was able to edit via Notepad like you did, keep the last 3 month’s worth and save it without a problem. But I can’t touch the one in C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup.
I am also logged on the Administrator account and I am on a stand-alone machine and have no problems doing maintenance on the computer (defrag, delete files, install programs and so on). Looks like I’ll have to leave this log file alone.
P.S. there is in the “settings” a limit that can be coded (default 4096K) for adjusting the size limit of the log files, but I don’t think it applies to the setup log, just the other ones, i.e. Alert, Critical, Errors, Warning, and so forth…
the one I can modify via Notepad is C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\Setup.log
and the one I can’t modify via Notepad is C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\Setup.log even if all Avast services are off (ashDisp, ashMaiSv, ashServ, AshWebSv, ashUpdSv) as well as the Avast program itself…
I went finally into SafeMode. logged on Admin account and did an edit of the file through the CMD line using EDIT pgm. I couldn’t change the file because the file is supposedely in READ MODE only. I logged back to normal, right-clicked the file in Windows Explorer, went into the Security TAB and gave my account the temporary authorization to write on the file (was read only). Everything went OK from that point. I then put back the authorizations to what it was before.
Thks DavidR for giving me a clue in relation to the Admin credentials. And good night to you all.
When I do a right-click on the file, at the bottom of the panel it tells me the file attribute is NOT ticked off for read-mode only. But if I go in Security it tells me my account is not enabled to write on it. Pretty weird eh? By the way, I have 2 accounts on my system, ADMIN and jacques, and they both are administrators. so…
Well… it’s well known that more than one account with admin privileges could mess things… at least with avast.
The real Administrator and other accoun with admin rights work togheter.
Two accounts with admin rights and you’ll get trouble…
Thks for the info. I was playing with creating an account so I could use it (with it’s associated password) to prepare a batch file and “run as” defrag.exe at boot time to defrag some metafiles ($secure:$sds:$data as an example which gets fragmented often). I haven’t got very far yet in terms of the batch coding because I never wrote a batch file in my life… but I’ll keep digging… If that doesn’t work I’ll just delete the account and revert back to what it was…
Strange that I can edit either DATA\Log\ or Setup\ setup.log file. However your mention about Security on the file, range a bell, I’m using FAT32 format and File Sharing is disabled on my system, so I don’t have a Security Tab on the file properties information.
Perhaps if you disable file sharing if you have it then it will allow you to edit it. It may be because other users can share the file that you can’t edit it ???
Yes, but with FAT32 format and sharing disabled, it removes the Security Tab from the file Properties, so I assume that the security aspects would also not be enabled. If so then no permission restriction.
I do have NTFS AND also Xp Pro, which I believe adds to the complexity. Since I am the only user of that machine, I simply turned off Simpe File Sharing since I don’t need it.
Beats me though why for this file particularly under the Security tab I can’t modify it (check Modification or Écriture in the test1 file) while in the other Setup.log in Avast4\Setup\Setup.log I can basically do whatever I want (see test2)
But, since I know how to do the modif to update the file, I am content enough