This program seems good. But I don’t need it to be up and running for every session I boot up my PC with small memory capacity, 1GB, (most of time not on the net, hence, no need for protection, not loading Avast conserves memory.
The intrusive thing is, in the Services (for Windows XP OS), even log on as Administrator I can’t change Avast automatic launch to manual, that is bad. Any way to disable Avast programmatically?
TIA.
avast is designed as a resident on-access scanner, it isn’t designed to be an on-demand scanner and personally I would recommend you leave it that way rather than try to cripple it.
You are finding the avast self-defence module designed to stop malware disabling your protection. It can be disabled by the user.
1GB RAM on an XP system is by no means small, my old system XP Pro with 1GB of RAM, a 1.8ghz athlonXP CPU and I didn’t find any real issues.
Your problem is your statement, (most of time not on the net, hence, no need for protection, not loading Avast conserves memory.) I have highlighted the ‘most’ relevant word as what you are planning isn’t a toggle on and off deal stopping and starting services.
RAM is relatively cheap at this time and another 1GB would help, but personally I think you have more than enough for XP.
What is your CPU ?
What other programs are running on boot ?
There are many that set themselves to run on boot when they aren’t essential, things like media players, etc. so it is these what I call non-security/system non-essential applications that should be audited.
small memory capacity, 1GB
Sigh- feeling my age. This computer has 256Mb. It ran Windows with avast! happily for years- now it’s pensioned off to Ubuntu with avast! on demand.
1 GB on a XP-System normally is much more than needed (“alt least 256 MB” is recommended by MS, so 512 MB would be quite OK, as I’m interpreting). On that level let avast! simply do as it does. Its RAM-consumption is really negligible. Another 1 GB might help with other applications, espacially at grafic software. To buy more emory currently is the best and cheapest way to upgrade a PC.
I have an older laptop that has 1.25 GB of RAM and runs XP SP3. It has Avast installed and I can’t say I have experienced Avast slowing it down. Avast is a good match with low resource systems and 1 GB of memory is by no means low resourced.
Try on your system Avast installed as it is intended to be and I think you’ll find it’s not instrusive on your system resources in XP.
Welcome to the forums, meme1111 
See the specs of my computer below. I also have only 1gb of memory and can play games, do photo & graphic work, open multiple windows in 2 browsers at the same time … all without any problems with avast running all the time. You do need to have avast running all the time because not all malware comes from the internet connection. Malware can also get on your computer from USB drives, cd’s, dvd’s, etc. I would like to suggest you have another problem.
Please download HijackThis from the link below. Do not download HJT to the desktop but instead download it into it’s own folder on the hard drive.
Run the program but do not make any fixes and then post the log results using the “copy & paste” method. It will probably take more than one post to be able to get the complete log posted.
OR, you can post it as an attachment to your post by clicking on “Additional Options…” below left of the posting box. Someone will review your log and then offer help.
http://filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/
Thank you all for your follow-up and sharing. Ok, fair enogh, my problem statement could be clearer.
It’s a UMPC, here’s the spec: 1GB Ram, 16GB HD, Intel Celeron for CPU at 900Mhz.
Use case: it’s a software demo platform for me (and intended to be used in a simlar fashion for users as well), I can almost eliminate its need to get on the net. Got some sort of malware a few days ago, which slightly messed up my presentation the other day (later used another trusted program to diagnose the problem and fixed it and heard good thing about Avast, hence, installed it as an extra help, and ran it for scanning, found 0 problem, good thing). And since I intend not to use this UMPC for any internet activity again. The net protection is not required. But I don’t want to remove/uninstall it for now, just in case …
Well I would suggest that you leave it to start on boot as if there does happen to be anything from your occasional forays onto the internet, that is when they would want to start.
If you right click the avast ‘a’ icon, select Stop On-Access Protection, that should lighten the load when needed without having to disable services and right click the avast ‘a’ icon, select Start On-Access Protection when you need it.
avast by comparison to many other AVs is relatively light on resources.
I have a similar need… so to be totally clear…
there is no way to configure Avast in an on-demand only mode?
you just have to remember to turn off real time scanning on every boot?
To disable avast!, you will first need to disable the self-protect feature.
You already know where to go to disable avast!'s services, that’s good. Remember to disable the autorun entry “ashDisp” located in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run as well, using msconfig or some similar utility. avast! is nice in this regard that you can completely snip away its resident modules without affecting its on-demand scanners; other products like AVG, F-PROT and NOD32 refuse to scan on-demand if you don’t leave their services running.
As a final note, if you want automatic updates, you can set a scheduled task using the Control Panel with the following parameters: “(your avast! installation folder)\ashupd.exe /silent /nodetails”
The ashDisp.exe is only an interface to the Program settings and on-access scanner control it plays no part in the protection so disabling it (from msconfig or the registry) will have zero impact on services or resource use, you only need to check the image I posted to see how little it uses.
avast won’t do an on-demand scan if you don’t have the avast! antivirus service running (ashServ.exe) as this is the main scanning engine. There are repercussions on hacking avast about, it simply isn’t designed as an on-demand scanner.
I don’t know if your scheduled updated hack also will work if the avast Update service isn’t running.
there’s a bunch of reasons for me to use it in demand only mode… I suggest a feature / setting that will allow the user to configure whether or not On Access Scanning is on at boot…
Incorrect. I’ve personally tested everything I described in my above post. Everything works perfectly as normal.
guys… before this whole thing becomes… well, a thing… I’ll point out it would be a handy feature to be able to set an “On-Demand” mode which is basically just a setting that starts Avast with on-Access off at boot… (as most users are not hackin the registry people)
any chance of that happening?
For now, a workaround would be to run the avast! install/uninstall program, and remove all the resident scanning modules.
Although I strongly advise against it, just disable each of the resident protection modules by left clicking the avast icon in the system tray and disable each one by one.
you can turn them all off at once by right clicking the tray icon and ‘stop an-access’ protection… that doesn’t fix the request to get on demand only by default at boot, which is what the thread was originally about…
incredibly easy feature enhancement for the Avast guys, add checkbox in settings that sets “on-demand mode - On-access scanning disabled on boot - use at own risk” or something like that … if they wanna get super fancy, they could set a tray icon with a yellow caution symbol in the lower left…
great solution for:
-power users of all types
-users that have machines boot into high performance / realtime apps (me)
-users that know what they are doing and have low performance machines
WinPatrol can be used to disable avast! from start up. 
avast is not designed or written with this in mind. I think it most unlikely that it is going to be - the design of avast will and must be tilted to those who pay for this product. Those folks will always have systems that are capable of running avast - as they want it.
Surely it would be better for those who want a free on demand scanner to take the easy route - not cause themselves problems - and find a free on demand scanner.