I appear to have installed Avast 8 beta...

Hi

(Sorry if this is in the wrong place, 1st time poster.)

Somehow, I have installed the free Avast 8 beta and things have just gotten very strange: I’m on Vista x64 Ultimate and everything appears to be running fine witht he program, except for the most annoying pop-up I’ve ever come across in my life!

Yesterday, I noticed a white-background pop-up from Avast telling me my subscription was about to expire; looking closer at this, the pop-up stated I had 148 days left on my free licence and this line: “you’ve enjoyed a whole year of free protection, it’s time to renew!” (Yes the last part is in bold.)

Mmm, a little odd I thought, but having used only Avast free for the last 8 years or so - probably the best out there in my opinion - I just got on with re-registering to start the licence of for another 12 months of cover…

However, everytime I turn on my machine now I’m greeted with this pop-up below:

http://i48.tinypic.com/5x7pli.jpg

So, I’m being asked to update for another year on the day I’ve actually updated for another year!

Anyone got any ideas on how to turn this off or should I just go back to Avast 7 and make sure I uncheck “automatically update program”?

Thanks

You can’t just somehow have installed avast 8, it is a closed beta that you have to go out of your way to have installed. Having read some leak of information and downloaded the closed beta.

It can’t just be updated from the manual program update in the avast 7 UI and Program Updates are set to Ask by default anyway not Auto. You can confirm the avast version but right clicking on the avast tray icon and select about avast!

Until such times as it becomes a public beta I’m afraid no one can offer advice in an open forum.

IMO you should return to avast 7, till v8 is out, or you could install the public beta(when is out) if you want to do some beta testing.

Regards RealNature

hi splosher,

Suggest looking more carefully in the future as to what you are clicking and downloading. Can save you a lot of potential grief and heartache in the days/years to come. Always check the version of any file you download; simply checking the Avast! version would have let you know it was a beta version, and not the final version, which is now 7.0.1474.

Betas always come with bugs built into them, and since I do not have an extra machine to experiment with, I avoid these like the plague. Especially since the antivirus program (any vendor or version) is the most critical program you can install for protection against malware infection, I never install and run beta versions.

Never download and install any betas of anything unless you know what you are doing and are ready to accept the consequences. No help or support will be now be or ever offered, for this particular beta version in this forum.

Once the public beta version of Avast! 8 is released, support for that version will be freely given. But, using the above version, you are completely on your own. Just so you know.

If you still want to do a beta, wait for the public release version.

Hi

Many thanks for the replies and so I have just uninstalled Avast 8, run ASWCLEAR, then run CCLEANER in registry, rebooted and re-installed Avast 6 free version. Once this was completed, I did my updates and then manually updated the program, which said to version 7.

However. my machine’s just rebooted and I’m greeted with this pop-up:

http://i47.tinypic.com/2i21tl1.jpg

I have not opted-in for a closed beta, all I’ve done is re-install Avast and completed the updates. I didn’t click the “finish” button to see if I could bypass this install, but to no avail:

http://i46.tinypic.com/2hs9ic5.jpg

I know this sounds like I don’t know what I’m doing, but believe me I’m someone who has worked in IT and has built his own computers and fixed other peoples’ machines for many years and I’m at a loss to explain this one!

Suggestions would be very helpful or else I’m turning to the Dark SIde (Microsoft Security Essentials)…

Oops!

I read somewhere that EFI boot machines sometimes seem to allow modifications to the bios/EFI, especially when Win 8 is installed, and Win 7 or older is attempted to have a clean install; install of older os’s will fail due to EFI modifications caused by the earlier Win 8 install.

As we (DavidR and I) said earlier, you are on your own with this one. Beta is Beta, especially when it is not a public release. Sorry.

[EDIT]: Can you publish the link you are using to download Avast! 7? We are getting reports here that there is a link stating it is for 7 but is not.

Honestly, there is no way to accidentally install this and a regular avast 7 program version won’t update to a beta version. So I’m completely at a loss at to how you have achieved this by accident.

The aswClear doesn’t have avast 8 on it, the joys of a closed beta.

You hopefully have an image backup to restore your system to a time before you “accidently” installed avast! 8.
Without that, you may be in for some grief. :cry:

Well, I know I must be sounding like a bit of a moron stating I’ve not downloaded the closed Beta 8 version, but I can assure you I don’t DO betas, so cannot understand where or how this version of Avast has come from!

Anyway, I’ve now just downloaded Avast 7 free version from here: http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?part=dl-85737&tag=lang_en&lang=en

Once downloaded, I just ran this install without trying to take out the Avast beta 8 this time and rebooted the machine when completed.

Now, this is what has greeted me just now on reboot:

http://i49.tinypic.com/mskh3q.jpg

It’s asking me to update again, exactly the same as before when the beta 8 was installed and I’ve just noticed that the installed version is stating “7.0.1475” in red, but the new program update offered below written in blue is “7.0.1474” - is this right?

That’s the problem the beta has to be removed or the incoming installation will be of a lessor version number.

Okay but will this version of Avast 7 be fine to use and give protection or is it all messed up because of the beta 8 stuff in the background?

There is no guarantee, to ensure that isn’t the case you have to completely remove all versions before installing avast 7.

Have managed to scrub my Vista x64 Ultimate clean from any previous versions of Avast and have just installed version 7, which now gives the correct program number (I think):

http://i47.tinypic.com/2s0076w.jpg

Was hard work, especially the manual deleting of the registry entries, but all’s looking well and all without a need to rebuild.

Thanks to all who offered help, much appreciated.

Glad you were able to correct things. Go here if you ever have doubts of what the most recent version number is.

http://www.avast.com/en-us/release-history