Okay, I’m the world’s biggest idiot. I just installed Avast after a period of time in which I didn’t have antivirus software active (I know, I know). I downloaded and installed Avast and chose to let it run the initial scan on bootup when I restarted. I also ignored the warning about having other antivirus software installed and the problems it can cause…I have Symantec on my computer, but it’s expired.
Anyway, upon restart Avast started scanning, but after a few minutes I got impatient and hit Esc to cancel the scan.
Now my computer will barely start up at all. It doesn’t freeze up entirely, but it might as well…it’s so slow that I can’t actually do anything with it. Task Manager shows that it’s continually using 100% of the CPU, though I don’t see anything unusual in the list of processes…nothing that accounts for 100% usage.
I’ve tried opening up the Control Panel to see if I can uninstall either Avast or Symantec, or do anything for that matter, but I can’t actually get to the Control Panel…The window opens, but it just stays on the little flashlight icon and says “searching for items…”
I powered off the computer and restarted it a couple times, out of desperation because I don’t know what else to do, but the same thing happens every time.
Is there any way out of this, or did I just kill my computer? I know that I pretty much just set an example of everything not to do, from installing Avast over another antivirus program to not having had a working antivirus program for a while (and let’s not forget that I haven’t backed up anything lately, which is a big reason why I’m so panicked).
It’s a 3-year-old computer running Windows XP. I have no idea if Avast is actually causing the problem or not, but installing Avast was definitely what started it. I’d be really grateful for any help with this.
StillOnTheRoad ,I suggest you’d better not
install two antivirus software in windows xp,
Because it’s easy to occur incompatible between these antivirus software and affect the system runs normally.
Then, you can set into safe mode,try to uninstall Symantec Antivirus.
Wish you good luck!
If your pc gives you problems when following Tech’s instructions try to remove Norton in Safe Mode as Ladydance sugested. How to boot in Safe Mode in Windows XP :
Thanks for the replies…here’s an update. I did try to boot up in safe mode, but the F8 method wasn’t working. I think I already saw the page you linked to, Rednose, because I remember seeing a warning about not using the System Configuration method if F8 didn’t work, so I didn’t want to try that right away.
Anyway, I left my computer running for a few hours after rebooting it, came back, and saw that after that length of time it was semi-functional - still slow, and still using a little over 50% of the CPU for no apparent reason, but I can work with it now. I uninstalled Symantec, and also found that I had McAfee installed (a free trial must have come with the computer, because I sure don’t remember downloading or purchasing it). I can only imagine what having 3 antivirus programs did to the computer, and I’m probably lucky it was okay this long with 2. Anyway, I uninstalled those and am in the process of running a scan with Avast - it already found a virus and some malware, so I’m sure that didn’t help my computer any to have those things.
When the scan is done, I’ll reboot again and hopefully everything will start up normally. I can’t connect to the internet right now - I get an error saying an IP address could not be obtained, and when I go to the command prompt and type ipconfig/renew, I get a message saying something about an operation being performing on something that is not a socket. Anyway, I googled those error messages already and I think I can figure out how to get my internet working again (and I know it’s my computer, because I’m at my fiancee’s computer right now with the same connection and internet is fine); even if that proves tricky, at least I didn’t lose all my files and stuff.
Thanks again for responding. This definitely serves as a wakeup call to take better care of my computer and back up important files!
