I just installed avast! 4 HE tonight on my Win2K+SP3 system (as Administrator), and, upon reboot, my regular, ‘user’ account was un-logable/destroyed. Win2K subsequently created a new one (‘user’ became ‘user.COMPUTER_NAME’).
My Administrator account was unchanged.
I was able to recreate the account, and copy most of the important stuff back over, but the process was a major pain in the neck. The cusp might have been the SMTP/POP Wizardry (that was the only part of the software that showed that particular user account in the Setup), but I can’t really say.
Any thoughts on why I should keep this software installed?
Avast installer doesn’t play with the profiles directly, just thru legal win32 api. If anything destroyed the profile, Windows would be the first to blame. Such one-in-a-million accident doesn’t prove anything though.
Oh, I’m more than willing to blame win32 (it’s let me down more than a few times)
I’ve had this happen before, but it was due to my own un-wise modifications of some part of the system (most-notably, changing Permissions within the registry). I’ve a decent grasp of what I should, and should not, do to preserve a healthy system–my current install has lasted me well over a year, now, and things were very healthy.
My interest in purchasing the full product is dependent upon an analysis of this software, but that is all but nill until I can get some sound idea as to why this happened directly after a fresh install of a new piece of software.
If this happened now, it will (most-probably) happen again.
I have un-installed the software until I can narrow-down what may have produced this erroneous situation
My experience, in retrospect:
a) dl the software from avast.com (as a non-Administrator ‘user’).
b) logged-off user, and logged-on as Administrator
c) verified Full Rights to the entire registry and all fixed-disks
d) activated the .exe, and chose Custom Install (unnecessary I now realize, as I kept the defaults)
e) Accepted the License
f) Selected to activate the boot-time scan
g) Followed the Mail Scanner Wizard, chose Option #1 (I utilize Mozilla as my MUA, and send directly via SMTP via my ISP’s Smarthost)
h) Rebooted, and let the boot-time scanner complete
i) Prior to log-on, my install of Kerio notified me that the Avast! software was attempting to establish a connection to ‘somewhere’ . . . pressed Deny about six times as I was unsure what this was all about (and I do not, in practice, allow unsolicited connections when I am not using my restricted, ‘user’ account)
j) Logged-in as my ‘user’ and boom!–my computer acted as if I had created a new account (Welcome Screen; default Desktop settings; email not working; etc.)
k) Explorer’ed to Documents and Settings to find that my user account still existed, yet an additional one had been created: ‘user.COMPUTER_NAME’ . . . I’ve seen this before, so I (thought I) knew what to do . . . logged-off user/logged-on administrator and deleted the user.COMPUTER_NAME account . . . log-off/log-on and the user.COMPUTER_NAME account was created again ;-
l) Had to resort to drastics: delete both user and user.COMPUTER_NAME, log-on as user, and re-set my configuration manually/copy-over important info from a backup of the user account, etc.
m) Of note: my Administrator account was completely unchanged (thank-goodness)–verified by backup comparison
Any thoughts on where in this process I may have made a mis-step?
I have exact same problem as mr.hurt. new profile added with name.computer_name. Ocurred after setting - Generate VRBD when computer is idle & then logging off to another profile.
No ERRORS of any type in Event Viewer (application or system) for 6 days prior to installing avastHome edition, EXCEPT false positive for - aavm initialization error:cannot run provider, Jscript - mentioned in another post.
Any suggestions how to solve? TY
I have exact same problem.
Profile added with name.computer_name.
Ocurred after setting - Generate VRDB when computer is ile. Then when logged off to another profile a new one was created from scratch with no settings.
No ERRORS in Event Viewer for 6 days prior to installing avastHome, EXCEPT for AAVM initialization error: cannot run provider, JSCRIPT
Absolutely Nothing was set EXCEPT for Avast settings. If you right click on avast Virus Recovery Database (VRDB) Generator, “i” icon in system tray - You can set - To Generate VRDB when computer is idle OR set to activate with screen saver. Check Avast Help contents under Healing.
I have set this back to activate with screen saver (do not use a screen saver) so it remains unfinished as it will not be started with that setting.
Moderator if you are reading this, can you advise if I should continue with the database backup? I do not know if this was part of the problem.
The only other issue at the time of installing avast was, as mentioned in this forum another POSSIBLE false positive - Win32:Trojan-gen {UPX!} - virus detection on first scan, the file IDENTIFIED by avast was TASKMAN.EXE
This file was deleted.
Corrected problem with profiles/accounts successfully - with avast4 Home edition still installed. But after three log ins/log outs problem returned. Created a couple of profiles/accounts which also renamed themselves name.computer_name. Again corrected profiles, PROBLEM SOLVED directly after uninstalling avast4 HE.
Hard to believe that avast av is not the cause or influence of the PROBLEM.
I´m XP Pro user. I had to install and reinstall avast because a registry corruption did by Norton SystemWorks (not NAV itself).
This problem was discussed in forum.
I had no trouble with user profiles. When a user (or administrator) deletes a user account and recriates it again, appear the _ account (even in XP systems).
I´m quite sure that this has nothing to do with avast application.
