Please help in disabling Avast Home AV!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi.

I installed Avast Home Edition 4.7.

My intention, however, for now, is not to use it as the primary anti-virus program on my computer. It is just to try its scanning capabilities and how reliably the main program behaves when I run it.

But on my computer (Windows 2000, 500 MHz, 4 GB hard-drive), Avast installed some services that run on every startup, impeding my other programs. (I am not 100% sure that these services are the ones that slow down all the others, but I firmly believe that they are doing this.)

Can you please tell me how to stop ashMaiSv.exe, aswUpdSv.exe, ashServ.exe, ashWebSv.exe and avast.setup - which sometimes annoyingly pops up to update automatically, even though I repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to tell the program to let me update manually - from starting together with Windows?

I am asking because I don’t know what the proper method for removing these entries is, and I don’t know how I can remove them and still be able to restore them if I want. Is it possible, to restore them after removing them?
(I know I could just go into regedit and remove the keys for these programs, but that is the brute force approach and I don’t wish to use it unless as last resort. Also, I’m not sure whether using regedit will cause problems when I try to use the main program / scanner afterwards, or not.)

I hope I made my problem clear enough. I really wish to remove these services for now, because my computer is working very slowly, and it wasn’t slow before I installed Avast.

Thank you in advance!

2

avast isn’t designed to be used as an on-demand scanner and crippling it in this way many not give a true indication of how it behaves. On installation there are registry entries, etc. created for virtual device drivers, Legacy keys, etc.

The main scanning engine is ashServ.exe disabling that no scan function.

You could disable the services without touching the registry, but as I said avast is designed as a ‘resident’ on-access scanner. In trying what you suggest, I assume you will have another resident scanner installed. This could cause conflicts.

What are these other programs that it impedes and how ?
The reason I ask is avast is relatively light on resources when compared with other AVs.

Lets try and treat the problem rather than cripple avast.

3

Do you still have another av installed? If so, then that is most likely what is causing the slowdown. Terminating the processes probably won’t help.

For the websv.exe and mailsv.exe, left click the “a” icon near the clock, click on the webshield provider and click terminate. A popup will ask to persist the change click yes. Do the same for the internet mail provider or any others you don’t want.

aswUpdSv.exe and avast.setup are part of the updating feature. Right click the “a” icon, click program setting, click update basic, set both to manual.

ashServ.exe, I believe is the main program, not sure what to stop.

edited to add

DavidR, you posted just ahead of me and I agree with you. I posted the above more as imformation as to what the processes are.

4

avast is not a good second, non-resident scanner.
You can try BitDefender (free), ClamWin (without residents).
Disable is not enough, never was… you must uninstall any other antivirus before installing avast, specially if you’re not using Microsoft Vista.

5

Hi.

Thank you for the replies.

As my first, on-access scanner, anti-virus program I use Avira AntiVir 7 PersonalEdition Classic. I have been using this ever since version 6, 4 years ago. I have never had any problems with this program, with one small exception which is that sometimes the resident protection does not load immediately upon startup. This happened very rarely, but that was the reason why I thought of trying Avast. However, after installing Avast, the resident protection of AntiVir started loading even worse than before.
And, also, all the programs work much more slowly than before.

I realize that having 2 AV programs might cause all kinds of slowdowns, but I would like to keep them both for now. Avast is not loading its resident protection at startup right now, because I had Spy Sweeper block it. (Therefore, I cannot right-click the “a” icon near the clock, as oldman says, because I have not allowed it to load.) Like I said, I want to see Avast’s detection capabilities first, and then I will try the resident protection.

But, even though it does not load at startup, Avast is still running those .exes in the background. And I believe that those background features of Avast are slowing all my other programs, especially the Internet browsing, and I would like to see how my computer works without them.
That is why I asked for your expertise in disabling them without using brute force.

I think I will disable them anyway, because I desperately want to see if my computer works faster withut them, like it did before I installed Avast in the first place, but I do not wish to get rid of Avast without giving it a proper chance. (Because if Avast will not work properly after I delete those entries from the registry, I will very likely uninstall it altogether.)

So, what do you guys think I should do if I will like for Avast not to protect my computer in real-time at all, but just to be able to run it on-demand?
[By the way, the options menu of Avast doesn’t listen to me. I tried to change the virus definitions update method to “Manual” from “Automatically”, and it always changes back to “Automatically”. So, I cannot change or disable anything from the Avast menu. (I am using the blue skin.)]

Looking forward to more insight from you. Thanks!

6

No, SpySweeper is blocking the icon not the services, the low level drivers, the legacy registry keys, etc.

Change your priorities. Let Antivir to be running as a second, non-resident scanning, disabling the Guard and the Antivir services. Use avast as the resident.
I see no other way to get out of your delay/performance troubles.

Maybe the presence of Antivir is messing your avast installation…

Look, I’ve used Norton, McAfee, AVG, Antivir and BitDefender.
I’ve, unfortunatelly, did not try NOD32 too long.
But I stay with avast! 8)

7

Hi.

You’re right about that, Tech, Spy Sweeper is not blocking the services, low level drivers, etc. But I wish it could, because what I can control with Spy Sweeper I can start, and stop, and start again whenever I want. With Avast’s low-level, intricate mechanisms, you seem to deliberately try and force people to use only your program.

Which brings me to the next issue. You say I should change my priorities. But that is very easy for you to suggest, I am sure, for you work for Avast.
But I have been using AntiVir for a long time. I have to see that Avast works perfectly, or at least better than AntiVir, to allow the change in resident protections, and so far Avast has performed very badly. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t be asking for help on these forums, I’m sure you realize.)
How can I let your program to handle the security of my PC, when I, for starters, can’t even change the configuration? (And blaming other programs for your own malfunctions is not something that would attract me to use your products. You might as well be working for Microsoft, with their sucky creations; if their operating systems weren’t so crappy and accident-prone, I wouldn’t even need Avast or AntiVir, but that’s another story…)

And, after asking for help in this forum, I don’t know if even you, who work for Avast, know what to do to fix some bugs in your own program. How can you not tell me how to make your program update manually when it refuses? (Even I knew enough to go into Avast4.ini, but unfortunately I didn’t find that option in there. I believe you should know where it is, though.) But perhaps you don’t want to tell me…
(I’ll stop posting on this forum if you’re not willing to at least try and help me. I could have deleted those entries from the registry 10 times now, if I hadn’t lost so much time to ask you repeatedly how to do it more productively.)

Sorry I’m being so blunt, but would you please tell me if it’s possible and/or how to stop those services in a nice way, or not? That’s all I am asking, and it is the only reply I am interested in.

8

Sorry for being blunt, but no one who has posted in this thread works for Alwil.

As for the ini file, there is a well laid out description, section by section here

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=1647.0

You can add the line you need to the appropoaite section or edit the existing one if present. The ini file opens with notepad. You should save a backup copy before you start editing.

For what it’s worth. I really feel that you are experiencing a conflict between two avs being installe at the same time. It doesn’t matter which two, a problem will usually occur.

9

Marking all 4 avast services as Manual start will effectively disable the on-access scanner and updater - therefore, make avast compatible with any other AV.

So, if that’s what you want you can do it this way.
Make sure to update the virus database before starting an on-demand scan though!

Thanks
Vlk

10

And the low level drivers? Won’t they affect?