Outllook 2007 crashing when Avast detects virus

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

When opening Outlook 2007 it immediately checks for new email. If Avast (6.0.1091 Free version) detects malware or a virus in any message, Outlook crashes with the error:

Microsoft Office Outlook has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.
Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

This happens so quickly I don’t have a chance to go into the Outlook menus to check the addins.
I’m running VAIO notebook with Win 7 Home Premium SP1 32-bit, 2GB RAM.

I’ve previously uninstalled Avast, run aswclear.exe, and re-installed. When that didn’t work I switched to Microsoft Security suite for awhile, and although it didn’t crash Outlook, I didn’t like it and removed it. I then tried AVG for a couple weeks. It also didn’t cause Outlook to crash but I didn’t like it either, so I removed AVG and re-installed Avast. With Avast, the same problem is back.

I’ve run a Repair from the control panel uninstall/change programs for Office 2007 but that didn’t help either.

The problem originally started soon after upgrading to v6.0. Any ideas or suggestions to fix this would be appreciated.

Update: I turned on debugging and the only new entry that appears is in the selfdef.log file:

4/26/2011 2:34:02 PM Write access to registry key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1063036155-2080057011-787513121-1002\Software\AVAST Software\Avast denied. [C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE]

The AvOutExt.log only contains one line:
4/26/2011 2:34:02 PM — AvOutExt started —

2nd Update: Starting Outlook in safe mode works. I was able to get rid of all the emails with viruses (9 this time) and then open Outlook in normal mode. I’ve unchecked the Avast add-in under Exchange Client Extensions and now will have to wait for another virus to arrive to see if the problem is fixed.

Update 3: Problem is solved. Avast still stops email viruses, and doesn’t crash Outlook without the plugin so everything seems ok now.

I hope this info help others.

Lee

2

I am also having this problem and I took your advice about disabling the Avast extension in Outlook 2007. I am running the Pro version of Avast 6.0.1091 but I found it strange that the extension in Outlook was Avast5! I upgraded from version 5 to this current version but it appears that the Outlook extension was not upgraded with the program. Either that or version 6 still runs a version 5 Outlook extension.

Having switched off the extension though, I am concerned that Avast is no longer monitoring my email. You also mentioned that you had restarted in safe mode and that Outlook appeared to be working after that with Avast checking your mail. I have experienced the same TEMPORARY fix but the problem has resurfaced which is why I am posting this now. If the people at Avast could please solve this problem it would be most appreciated.

3

Hi Lee. I am having the same issue. I can confirm that a virus in an email attachment is crashing Outlook since if I see a crash, I look in the Avast Chest and a virus was removed at the same time Outlook crashed. Then if I delete the email from Webmail and try to synch, it works fine.

What did you do between “Update 2” and “Update 3”? You said that you stopped the virus protection extension, but how are you protected now?

This seems to be an issue with Avast, so can someone from the support team please email me?

Thanks for the help everyone!

Dennis

4

Hi everyone. I was just told by the Avast staff that the next version upgrade coming out in two weeks will have this fixed. FYI! Dennis

5

Thanks for posting dennisgaudenzi.