How to do a silent uninstall?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

How may I uninstall Avast Antivirus silently, without any prompts or clicking.

I’ve tried passing parameters to the UninstallString like:

& "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\Setup\Instup.exe" /instop:uninstall /silent

But no luck.
Because of the protecting services Avast runs, it seems like a silent uninstall may not be possible without a reboot. I would be fine with it set to uninstall at the next reboot.

Apparently a program called aswclear.exe is supposed to do exactly this. However, attempting to download aswclear.exe (http://files.avast.com/files/aswclear.exe) redirects me to avastclear.exe (http://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avastclear.exe). It looks like aswclear.exe has been deprecated and used to allow passing /verysilent to achieve this. However, I can’t figure out the argument to pass to avastclear.exe to achieve this same thing.

Has anyone figured out a way to silently uninstall Avast?

Ref:
how to do this with aswclear.exe https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=47354.0
somewhat related; info about the installers used https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=81104.msg775764#msg775764

2

I really want to do this as well. I’ve combed these forums and tried the avastclear.exe files from various releases. All no luck.

Here’s what I currently have:

start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\Setup\Instup.exe" "/control_panel /instop:uninstall"

It just opens up the installer from control panel. Is there a silent switch or documented list of commands that can be passed to this exe?

3
Has anyone figured out a way to silently uninstall Avast?
Have uinstalled avast many times, never heard a sound ;D
4

I hear my users screaming because Avast wants to give them “Free Gifts!” lol

5

As I recall there are some command switches, but they are only available in the paid versions and I believe they are install related.

I don’t believe there is command function for a silent uninstall.
If a silent uninstall was even possible, it would be so easy for malware to do exactly the same thing.

6

If you Google avast command line you find some info, but as David say it don’t work in free version

7

I created this powershell script based on uninstall logs, it seems to work on Windows 7, and puts a dent in Windows 10. However in Windows 10 even the system user doesn’t have permission to stop the avast process or delete the avast folders.


start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWebRepIE.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/s /u C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWrcIEBroker32.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWebRepIE64.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWebRepIE64.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswAMSI.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswAMSI.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\aswAMSI.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\aswAMSI.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\asOutExt.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\asOutExt.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\asOutExt.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\asOutExt.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AhAScr.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\RegSvr.exe" "/U C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AhAScr.dll"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswRunDll.exe" "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\ashBase.dll,_basDeinstallCertificatesFromInstup@16"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswRunDll.exe" "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\ashMaiSv.dll,Deinstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswRunDll.exe" "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\Setup\Instup.dll,_AcsStopSoftwareUpdater@16"


Stop-Process -processname avast* -Force
Stop-Service Avast* -Force
Stop-Process -processname asw* -Force
Stop-Service asw* -Force

$service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='aws'"
$service.delete()
$service = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Service -Filter "Name='avast'"
$service.delete()

start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswNdisFlt.cat /netservice:aswNdisFlt /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/netservice:sw_aswNdis /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswNetNd6.cat /netservice:aswNetNd6 /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/netservice:sw_aswNdis /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswNetNd6.cat /netservice:aswNetNd6 /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswKbd.cat /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswRdr2.cat /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswHwid.cat /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswVmm.cat /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/catalog:aswRvrt.cat /uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe" "/svc /unregister /firewall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/uninstall /catalog:aswTap.cat"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\OpenVPN\driver\win64\ndis6\tapinstall.exe" "remove aswTap"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\x64\SetupInf.exe" "/uninstall /catalog:aswTap.cat"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\SetupInf.exe" "/uninstall /catalog:aswTap.cat"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\SetupInf.exe" "/uninstall /catalog:aswTap.cat"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\SZBrowser\launcher.exe" "/uninstall /silent"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\SZBrowser\launcher.exe" "/uninstall /silent"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\bcc.exe" "--farewell"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastEmUpdate.exe" "/installer /unreg"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastNM.exe" "/uninstall"
start "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe" "/svc /unregister /antivirus /antispyware"


Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskPath "AVAST Software"
$scheduleObject = New-Object -ComObject schedule.service
$scheduleObject.connect()
$AVASTFolder = $scheduleObject.GetFolder("AVAST Software")
$AVASTFolder.DeleteTask("Avast settings backup", $null)
$AVASTFolder.DeleteTask("Avast upgrade utility", $null)
$rootFolder = $scheduleObject.GetFolder("")
$rootFolder.DeleteFolder("AVAST Software", $null)


Remove-Item "C:\avast! sandbox" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "C:\Program Files\Avast*" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "C:\Program Files (x86)\Avast*" -Force -Recurse

Any insight would be appreciated.
We used to have Avast Business, then when we upgraded all clients to Windows 10 the free version of Avast installed itself, it’s now unmanageable.

8

Obviously an open forum isn’t the sort of location to be discussing how to silently uninstall avast, even if your script only puts a dent in the win10 installations of avast.

9

After installing W10, you should have deployed avast again to the clients.

10

The boss doesn’t want that, our goal is to remove it all together.

11

Well, in that case you should have removed avast from the clients before the upgrade.