Offline Installer v17.4 Fails on WinXP & Vista (AntiVirus Free)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

The current offline installer (Installer version 17.4.3482.0) has a problem

  • when run on older versions of Windows (XP and Vista)
  • in that it fails when the computer has no internet connection
    Installing on Win7 & Win10 both work OK (have not tested on Win8.x)

The previous offline installer (Installer version 17.3.3443.0) works OK

  • it installs fine with no internet connection on both WinXp and Vista.

The 17.4.3482.0 offline installer fails with a nondescript error message

  • “Error Occured” please restart your computer.
  • restarting and trying again results in the same error.

Reverting to the earlier v17.3 installer works first time

  • even directly after the failed v17.4 install (with no restart)

Just to clarify the Installer Version numbers are not the same as the Program Version it installs
Installer Version 17.3.3443.0 - installs Program Version 17.3.2291 (Build 17.3.3443.0)
Installer Version 17.4.3482.0 - installs Program Version 17.4.2294 (Build 17.4.3482.0)

2

The current version need a connection in order to be installed.
That is by design.

3

So basically the Offline Installer is no longer an “Offline Installer” when used with WinXP or Vista
It just fails to install without declaring why, leaving just a cryptic error message

  • which inspires little confidence in the design of the installer
  • with no sensible report of the failure condition
    Not exactly user friendly is it?

As I stated the current Offline Installer works fine (without an internet connection) on Win7 & Win10

  • so your response is at best misleading.
4

It is what someone from avast said in another thread.

5

Details: Offline installation is officially no longer supported on Vista and XP because new CEF (only one boundled in offline installer because of size) is not supported there and the online installer will download the correct CEF version.

6

I have tried reporting this via Avast Support but just get bounced as it applies to AntiVirus Free product.
Can someone get a message to the appropriate Avast Section/Staff to fix this problem?

What needs to be done:

  1. Update the Installer Downloads page with a warning about this change for XP & Vista
  2. Update the Installer FAQ article (which currently implies it work OK for XP & Vista)
  3. Get the Installer updated to give a sensible error message about this problem

Doug Collins - Tech Support Engineer - London UK

7

Done. Cheers.

8

Thanks for reporting, we will check it. That’s definitely not desired behavior.

9

Ooops sorry, yes this behavior is ok. It’s a compromise. The issue is that our rendering engine runs on latest Chromium that doesn’t support XP/Vista anymore.

So we have 2 versions of rendering engine, old one for XP/Vista and the latest one for newer OS. The issue is that the older engine isn’t included in the offline installation package and is being downloaded during the installation. So when you are offline nothing can be downloaded and the installation crashes. Solution would be to add the old engine to the offline package as well but that would increase the size of installer for another ~20MB. This is not worth considering how many users is installing on Vista/XP in offline mode, because the size would increase for all OS.

10

Hi Martin, it’s no about changing it, but to mention it (Site/FAQ/Installer).

Cheers,
Asyn