With the imminent demise of AVG 7.5, and negative reports of AVG 8, I am switching to Avast. Yesterday evening I installed Avast 4.8 Home in my father’s computer (Toshiba P4 laptop running Windows XP Home). The installation was OK and I updated it successfully online. I then immediately tried to register, but found I could not connect with the web-site. I checked other web links and in Outlook Express and could not get anything at all, though the connection (dial-up) appeared to be working normally.
After half an hour with no better results I tried uninstalling Avast and dialled-up again, but still with no result. Further investigation proved that the fault was actually with my Dad’s ISP, so I re-installed Avast, but I then found that the VRDB icon did not appear in the task-bar (it was NOT ‘merged’ with the main icon) and I could find no way of recovering it. I uninstalled Avast again and deleted all remaining files I could find, and references to Alwil in the registry, and installed it yet again - same result!
I then spent the next hour and a half re-installing AVG 7.5 and 16 months worth of updates as a very temporary ‘fix’! I don’t live near my parents, so I won’t be able to do anything immediately, but is there any way I can be sure of success next time?
You need to temporarily disable the avast self defense module:
Right click the ‘a’ blue icon on system tray.
Programs settings > Troubleshooting (tab)
Disable self defense module
But Moriarty, I won’t worry that much about the icon or VRDB that will be “dropped” in next avast 5 version. It’s an old and relatively obsolete technology nowadays.
Thanks, Tech! The avast4.ini file would have been deleted, though, when I removed the ‘Program Files\Alwil Software’ folder in-between installations, so wouldn’t the fresh installation have created the .ini as before? I had a suspicion that the installation might be incomplete.
I wondered if it would help to get a completely normal installation if I ran aswclear.exe before I attempt it again. Does this work on an ‘uninstalled’ program? Would this remove any remaining files and registry keys so that everything should run as if Avast had never been previously installed?
Yes, the uninstaller could be run in a machine without avast running. You can point the uninstaller to an empty folder if you removed avast installation folder previously.
Thanks, both. I’ll be able to give it a try in a week or so. I am betting that there must have been something left from the previous installation that was causing the problem. If aswclear.exe doesn’t fix it I will check out avast4.ini as suggested.
I had another try yesterday, and got there in the end. First I ran aswclear, then uninstalled AVG and installed Avast. The result was exactly the same as before, with no VRDB icon (also another couple of icons missing from the RH end of the task-bar). I checked avast4.ini and there was no entry for VRDB, so I added it as above, and re-booted. Still no change!
I carried on regardless, and updated the virus definitions. After running a couple of scans I found that at some point the VRDB icon and the other missing icons had appeared. I was able to create the VRDB database, and everything seems to be working fine.
This computer has always had some strange and annoying habits from when it was new, so possibly it may have been at the root of the problem, rather than the installation.
Did you minimize the VRDB ? Did you uninstalled AVG with their removal tool ? Just quick question like that. Because its impossible that u cant see the “i” icon i hope a avast employe will can help on this
Point taken about the VRDB being obsolete, it’s just that when things that should be there are missing or not working properly I start to worry about what else might be wrong! Anyway, as described in my previous post, everything is now present and working well. On balance I now think it is much more likely that the problem was caused by the computer, rather than the installation. My Dad’s machine has always been ‘eccentric’, and losing a few icons is just the sort of trick it would play. The scan found viruses in 3 files and 2 trojans, though to be fair, I’d have to say it may be some time since the machine had a full scan under AVG.
I’ve installed Avast on two of my own machines without any problem (my current 650MHz P3 system and the 866Mhz system I’m about to switch to) and am very satisfied with it. I haven’t noticed any reduction in performance such as I was afraid might occur in such low spec. systems.
