I have the free version of Avast! which I renewed and updated a couple of weeks ago. Both my previous version of Avast! and the new version increased my computer’s start-up time tremendously – so much so that I had to go into the Start-up menu and deselect it, then manually perform the scans later on. This worked fine with the previous version, but the new version keeps getting back into the Start-up menu every single time it updates – meaning DAILY. If I don’t remember to go into the Start-up menu and deselect it before shutting down each and every night, I’m faced with a 40-minute boot the next morning. It’s ridiculous. Is there any way I can keep Avast! out of my Start-up menu permanently – or configure it in such a way that it doesn’t bog down my computer so badly upon start-up? Thanks for your help.
avast does not scan at logon time. The only on demand scanning take place 8 minutes after logon (rootkit scanning).
The logon time should take a little longer as avast is loading but, for sure, 1-2 minutes.
Use http://soluto.com/ to diagnose your boot time.
good one. Tech. this is beauty!
I suppose I could run it on demand.
I was thinking of dropping Java but I like to have the auto updates.
Not yet. It will be in the future according to the developers that I’ve made contact.
Right now, each boot it runs.
My boot time and one of the problems I had with earlier avast versions 
My machine boots very fast and the Vista machine I recently installed Avast! on boots a lot faster than it did with MSE installed and also seems more responsive overall. There is no way that any AV , or anything else for that matter, should cause a 40 minute boot time on an otherwise healthy machine. There has to be something else wrong there.
Also avast is one of the best in the benchmark tests of boot time.
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2010/07/08/new-antivirus-benchmark-is-here/
Why is Avast scanning all the Start Menu items every time after log-on? At least that’s what I see in the real-time shield history: every time it scans several hundered .lnk files. It drives me crazy listening to the poor, not-that-young hard drive working.
avast is doing its job… programs can be infected and invoked by the startup menu.
You could make exceptions… you could check if any other security program is installed and “fighting” with avast…
Try loading avast! last in Settings -----Trouble Shooting
But I’m not talking about the Start-Up menu, I don’t have anything in there. I’m talking about the links in all the Start menu folders. I looked at the File System Shield options, and could find none that would refer to this behaviour as all those links at the boot time are, e.g., neither written nor executed, nor loaded, nor opened, right?
I shall try to load Avast last, although I don’t see why it should then not scan all the Start Menu items anyway…
A sophisticated piece of malware could put entries in the Start menu to make you believe it’s a safe program. Avast should be scanning what’s in there.
Sorry but it is unclear to me what you mean by links in the Start-up folders
As far as I know there are Processes and Services in the Start-up process and when most people talk about Start-Up menu they are referring to user applications that run that run during the Start-Up process and not the Windows Processes or Services or the processes of the Applications that run at Start-Up.
I never heard of “links in Start-Up folders” unless you talking about the directory path to the location of the Processes and Services that run at Start-up.
So what do you mean by “links in Start-Up folders”?
Sorry the misleading.
I mean, processes and services at startup and also any executable being read to get icons on the Windows menu or any other executable being read by Windows for instance…
In other words, anything that Windows is doing in background and is being monitored. The antivirus need to do its work.
Sorry, I posted in this thread that was about Start-Up menu only. I am talking about the whole Start Menu instead (which Start-Up is a part of). It’s what I see when I click Start->All Programs (I have Windows XP).
OK, so some Windows background process is supposed to crawl through all the Start Menu links to get the icons or something, and it forces Avast to scan them, right?
Will have to do then. Or maybe I shall move Start Menu content to another folder and use that one as my special Star Menu instead.