Have run avast home for a couple of years now - great product. Yet lately in the system tray (bottom right hand side) other programs which connect to the net are opening & functioning before avast is operational. Eg, msn and a few others. I suppose this isn’t a problem if my firewall is immediately enabled ( i don’t know if Kerio is or not) - but should i be worried other programmes are operating before Avast is ready?
Many thx
You don’t say what OS you are using?
I would seriously look at these programs that are opening before avast (for me avast is one of the first to load, even before my firewall). In my opinion there is absolutely no need for MSN to run on boot, rather you start it when you want it. Look at these other programs and assess if they need to start on boot.
You could uninstall these programs, reboot and install again (perhaps that may alter the boot order), unless these programs are security related I would say avast should load first.
Welcome to the forums.
ooops, soz. xp pro sp1
modified the sart up - thx
No problem, welcome to the forums.
I would recommend you update your OS if possible as a lot of exploits have been closed and other security enhancements have been added in SP2. It will also allow you to get the latest IE6 SP2 update.
Generally, the firewall is critical (more than the antivirus).
Better will be using SP2 like David posted.
You can try Startup Delayer application to configure the order in which the programs are loaded at logon.
http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay
Dear David & Tech thank you for your comments.
Sp2 is filled with too much trouble for me. (Detailing the probs it caused to my usb drivers is worth another forum trip) however i have d/l the startup delayer and it’s gui is straightforward - nice one.
Startup delayer doesn’t recognise the Kerio firewall which indicates (i think) that the firewall boots up straightaway and is fairly much welded to the os.
Thanks again
Yes, Startup Delayer can’t manage Windows Services (kpf4ss.exe). Only the GUI (icon in system tray) of Kerio (kpf4gui.exe).
It’s a shame that, with automatic logon, Kerio brings an error trying to load the GUI 
Does anybody knows how to control windows services startup?
If even tried ServiceView from NCS Z-tools (http://nativecs.com/index.en.php) but there are not such options…