This time my update was not as flawless as it had usually been in years.
As soon as I restarted my Win10 64 system (after upgrading from Avast Free Antivirus 23.5 to 23.9) and resumed playing the movie I was watching just before, my audio started producing some regular intermittent noises.
During playback, every 30 seconds or so, I now get a couple of seconds of slowdown and buzz, as if some background task was disturbing the playback.
I guess the “culprit” must necessarily be Avast, as a coincidence is quite unlikely, given that no other changes have been made to the system.
It seems that this new version has something that doesn’t fit my setup.
So my question is:
what is the easiest and quickest and safest way to “undo” the update and go back to the previously installed version (or to another one, hopefully… noise-free) without loosing all the configuration settings?
Unfortunately you would have needed to save the offline install file of the previous version. They’re available on Avast’s website but my understanding is that they only have the offline install file for the latest/current version available.
You might be able to see if a friendly enough user on here who saved it is willing to send it to you and coordinate with them.
Thanks for your answer.
I actually have the offline install file of the previously installed version.
I don’t know, however, whether that file can be used “over” a more recent installed version.
And I also don’t know whether I can (or not) use that file to roll back without loosing my settings.
I have never used an offline install file before or had to roll back to a previous version, but my slightly educated guess would be that you need to uninstall the version you have, then install whatever previous version you want with the offline install file.
Now, the tricky part here is whether, once the install is complete, Avast will attempt to automatically update to the newest version or does it give you a chance to intervene and stop the update and change your Application update settings to Manual or “Remind me when an update is available.” Because to answer your next question
You can (just back up the settings before you uninstall from the Troubleshoot options under Settings), but when you re-install Avast it gives you the default settings and you have to manually restore your settings from the file you saved previously. Because the default settings are to automatically install the latest version, you might have to go to that setting in particular and change it to only Manually update. And then you can upload your settings files and restart your computer for that to take place. But I don’t know how much time you are given or if you have to react quickly.
Thanks for your help.
I also think the only way is to uninstall (and maybe also totally clean) and then install and manually load the previously saved settings (hoping that the “old” version does accept the settings backup created with a newer one).
... the tricky part here is whether, once the install is complete, Avast will attempt to automatically update to the newest version or does it give you a chance to intervene and stop the update and change your Application update settings to Manual ... I don't know how much time you are given or if you have to react quickly.
Luckily there is a quite simple “old” way to prevent the automatic update to take place: physically disconnect the PC from the Internet (remove the LAN cable or disable WiFi) before launching the offline installation.
Anyway, given that usually Avast updates often come around the 20th of the month and there’s only a week left (and I’m pretty lazy), I think that before rolling back I’ll… give Avast a chance: I’ll try to see whether the 23.10 release will solve the audio problem.