older version of avast for slow, obsolete PC (Dell Dimension Pentium 4 2GB)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have the offline setup for avast free version 17.2291. I installed it (just File and web shields),
and although it took about 5 minutes after every boot up to settle down (disk activity - this PC has a very slow HDD),
it was generally usable.

About a week later it updated to the latest version even though I had set program update to “manual”.
PC is now unusable and I promptly uninstalled. There’s no use moaning about avast’s inability to honor
the manual setting - we all know this sometimes happens - although I thought by version 2291 it wouldn’t do it.

Is this older version no good for 32 bit Windows 7?

If I thought I could stop it updating, I’d retry it. Frankly, I’m not holding my breath.
I have that version running on an XP PC and it’s been fine for over a year, never did anything I didn’t expect.

2

see here for minimum system requirements - https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/Install-Free-Antivirus

3

My PC meets the minimum requirements but only just.
This is probably why the older version ran better, it’s obviously lighter.

Question is, why did it auto update and how/if I can stop it if I retry

4

I have Avast Free 18.8.2356 on my Dell Dimension 8200 P4 1.8Ghz 2GB RAM and it is working just fine. I only install:
File Shield, Web Shield, Behavior Shield and Rescue Disk portions of it.