I’m using Avast 4.6 Professional. Today my pc has been struck hardly by the spysheriff malware and I had a hard time getting rid of it by using several anti adware programs.
The problem is resolved but now I can’t see the avast scanner and updater icons on the system tray. I tried reinstalling the software but nothing changes.
Strangely, my Windows XP security center reports that nothing is wrong by my antivirus protection, it’s up to date and running. I felt even worse when I entered a known unfriendly website and I’m not warned by avast, as I was getting warnings on that site before this problem occured.
Any recommendations?
(Additional things you may want to know: I had to delete two strings from registry while fighting the malware, that may cause the problem?)
Download avast! External Control clicking on ‘Control’ in my signature.
Unzip it and run.
You’ll see avast! tweaker option.
Choose to show system tray icon and let us see if it helps.
Another way to fix the problem, just add the path to ashDisp.exe into
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
(as the value named avast!).
What anti-adware/spyware tools do you have ?
In the past a SpySweeper detected the icon as a false positive detection, which should have been resolved some time ago.
Some programs also monitor startup entries and can stop the ashDisp.exe (avast icon and provider settings interface) being displayed.
WSC wont worry about the avast icon but is looking at the scanning elements/services. What is running in Task Manager avast’s processes begin with ash or aws.
Have you installed any other AV in an attempt to get rid of this, that could be a conflict issue ?
Did you install over the top or uninstall, reboot, install, reboot ?
if you did that try avast uninstall utility (see below) uninstall, reboot, run the utility, boot and install.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here
You may have to go the uninstall reinstall route I mentioned.
xoftspy for some time has been considered rogue/suspect anti-spyware see http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm, check and see if it is still the same. In any case I would recommend that you uninstall it and reboot before you reinstall avast.
The only thing missing in the task manager list you gave is the ashDisp.exe for the icon. I don’t know if xoftspy did that. If they are known unfriendly sites, why visit them, there are easier, safer ways to test web shield, etc.
Most anti-adware applications have conflicts with avast! so I advise all users to pay attention to it. I uninstalled Xoftspy to fix it, but that was not all.
Even Ad-Aware’s Ad-Watch function caused me some trouble because it automatically blocks all attempts by any program trying to add something to the registry, for instance avast!'s ashdisp.exe function. If you plan to use Ad-Watch with avast!, I recommend you not to set Ad-Watch to automatic mode and allow the registry entry attempt “ashDisp.exe”.
(This topic could be locked by the forum moderators if they wish to.)
Most anti-adware applications don’t have a conflict with avast, AdAware free doesn’t because it doesn’t have the AdWatch a paid for option, if you had mentioned you had the paid version I would have mentioned AdWatch. You can still have AdWatch if it were to at least warn you of what it is doing, rather than simply deleting stuff in the background.
The same is true of SpyBot Search & Destroy, no problem with the free program if you don’t have the TeaTimer (resident) function enabled, fortunately this is disabled by default.
These resident elements aren’t conflicting just with avast but any installation you do that would create a startup entry. So care needs to be exercised during installs, either disable the function until after the install or have it warn before action.
Sorry, my mistake, let’s call it an issue then. Must need to have automatic deleting options for resident protection of those applications turned off, and should manually allow/disallow actions to avoid having these slight problems.
I also find it best not to use any anti-adware/spyware resident programs in automatic blocking. Instead, these residents functions should be set to “ask” before doing any allowing or blocking. As you now know, this is the conflict because you do not realize what is going on with these set to automatic. Sure, if you install something new, you will have one or two warnings/questions but how hard is it to click yes or no? ???
It is better to know what is going on than to be oblivious to the facts.
