HELP Please - Avast5 failed now neither 5 or 4.8 will run!!!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I’ve been running v4.8 and thought I’d upgrade my XP SP2 machine to v5. I did not uninstall 4.8 on the understanding v5 would do that. The notification area icon had a red X on it. In the Status UI, the message is “Unsecured” and the shields were all down. Clicking start program did absolutely nothing. Checking the v5 service it was not started and refused to start - kept throwing an Error 1503 - would not respond to start in a timely fashion. Tried to do an uninstall-repair - same results. Then did an uninstall / restart / install - same problem. Then did an uninstall / restart / installed 4.8. It now will not run either!! Icon does not appear and trying to start the service gives an Error 1503 - would not respond to start in a timely fashion. Trying to use the Alwil aswclear.exe tool and it says self protection module is enable so can’t run. I can’t access the app to turn off the module as it won’t run. Tried killing the self protection module driver but its protected. Ugh!!! Any suggestions on how I can get back to ‘normal’ - thanks!

2

hi,
stay calm :wink: do you have any restore points from before things went wrong ? but before that, check in “services” the state of Avast services and try to start it manually.

3

Yes - good idea!

4

OK but I edited my post, you can also, before attempting a restore, try to restart avast service manually…

5

I did try the services as noted in my original post - they throw an error as described above. I tried one more time just now and still the same. I’ll try the restore - thanks!

6

I’ve tried the last 5 restore points before my Avast problems and none are successful. I notice too that even though I ‘uninstalled’ both versions of Avast their folders and some files remain and the services are still listed although they won’t start. Any suggestions?

7

FYI - I’m up and running again on v4.8. Had to go into safe mode and delete all the Avast folders / files so the services couldn’t try to start. Then re-installed v4.8 in the same folder location as previous and all is well. I will NOT be upgrading to v5 until bugs are fixed!

8

Me neither Pops. Don’t like fixing the computer 2-3 time a day. To many issue with 5.0 in XP right now.