Hello everyone- newbie to Avast here with a question about the VRDB aspect of Avast. I am running Avast on both of my home computers (Toshiba satellite pro laptop-XP Pro, and Gateway GT5012 Media Center Edition XP Home) When I downloaded Avast to the laptop everything worked just fine–no problems, but after downloading to the desktop I can’t seem to initialize the VRDB function. Any ideas on getting it to work or am I just not looking in the right place?? Thanks in advance – Lost in Texas–
Right click the avast icon - select vrdb - then choose when to generate ;D
I can't seem to initialize the VRDB functionCan you give some more information, like any error messages, etc.
What is it that you are trying to do ?
Do you mean Generate VRDB ?
When I right click the Avast icon there is no VRDB selection (should be right under update).
Are your icons merged or do you have seperate i icon (it maybe hidden in your systray) if so right click this and then generate at your choice
I only have one Icon and there is no VRDB generate selection available. It is availabe on the laptop and works just fine and I use it with no problem. There just isn’t any listing of VRDB at all when I right click the avast icon.
If there is no VRDB when you right click the avast ’ a ’ icon then there should also be an ’ i ’ icon that is the VRDB icon and Generate Now should be an option.
So it would appear if the ’ i ’ isn’t hidden (< arrow to the left of the system tray) then it is missing.
Do you have any other security software such as AdAware, Spybot, Prevex, etc. ?
You could try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. You need to be on-line to do this. However, I don’t think that would work.
If that doesn’t work try, uninstall, reboot, install, reboot.
Thanks for the quick reply–I tried the uninstall and reinstall and it worked perfect–all is well with the universe (mine anyway) thanks again for the help.
Glad I could help, welcome to the forums.
Hello, another newbie to Avast here. I have the program installed. However, while reading through the help files, from what I understand I am supposed to have a couple icons in my system tray. There are no icons in the system tray. Did I or am I missing something? With no icons in the system tray I don’t believe I am getting any realtime virus protection. I’m not as computer savvy as many so any help would be appreciated.
Tried the Repair option and didn’t seem to fix anything. Still no icons in the systray.
Welcome to the forums, artful_dodger. 
Did you have another av program before avast? And if so, which one and are you sure it was completely uninstalled?
Repair generally won’t recover missing icons.
This is a commonly asked question the forums search function should reveal this.
Did (or did) you have another AV installed on this system, if so what (and how did you remove it) ?
Do you have any other security related programs that may have an effect on startup entries, e.g. AdAware, Spybot, WinPatrol, Prevex, etc. ?
Thanks for the welcome.
That is probably where my problem lies. I do have Norton installed as my virus protection in addition to Spybot, Adaware and Spyware Blaster.
I’m a bit leary at this point about uninstalling Norton until I feel that Avast is the program I prefer to use. Apparently that is not possible because it would seem that as long as I have Norton installed Avast will not work properly.
It isn’t recommended to have two resident on-access scanners installed on the same system.
This will only give you lots of heartache and not twice the protection. This forum is strewn with the debris left behind after NAV is uninstalled and the conflict that it causes even then.
You really do have to make a decision as to which AV to have installed as your resident. Whilst installed avast will detect this and not install fully to avoid conflict, which can lock your system and potentially it vulnerable.
Thank you David. I understand what you are saying. I’m quite sure if I decide to go with Avast that the problem/conflict I’m experiencing will cease to exist.
Thanks again for your help.
A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT
This is worth running if you chose to uninstall NAV, then reboot, uninstall avast (as it obviously hasn’t installed fully), reboot and then install avast.