Problems uninstalling avast 4.7 - avast still in memory!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have a huge problem. Some months ago, I uninstalled avast 4.7 home, since I bought a new antivirus. Now, I’ve decided to change my antivirus, but while installing a new one, the new antivirus has informed me that in my system there was another antivirus: avast 4.7 home!!!
I’ve tried to clean everything using aswClear.exe (provided by avast)… but still, the new antivirus, while installing, tells me that avast is present my memory!
Since the same fact has happened to me in another pc, I think this is a major problem with avast. How can I unintall it definitely? Please, help me!

My OS is Windows XP SP2

Thanks!

2

Did you first install it, then later uninstall it (and run the uninstall utility) on an admin account?

3

Yes, I have only administrator account in my pc’s

4

What are the other anti-viruses involved, the one after avast and the one after that ?

5

I don’t know if this is important. Anyway, the two antiviruses were Kaspersky 6.0 and AVG 8.0. Yesterday, while trying to install Kaspersky 7.0, the installer manager notified me that another antivirus was still present in my pc: avast 4.7 home…

:-((

6

Do you have these registry keys?
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWARKRN
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWFSBLK
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWMONFLT
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWRDR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWSP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWTDI
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ASWUPDSV
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_AVAST!_ANTIVIRUS

By the way, Igor, do you know a tool that remove ‘old’, unused legacy drivers?

7

Tech,

I have all of those registry entries.

Last week I needed to perform some testing of the latest Kaspersky release - I uninstalled avast, ran aswclear and then installed the latest Kaspersky.

I received no complaints from Kaspersky.

8

How can I check?

9

So you’re right and my guesses not. Why is Kaspersky complaining in fabiofr system then?
By the way, do you know a tool for old legacy drivers?

10

Well… alanrf said they’re not the problem.
To check the registry you can use regedit.exe, but it’s not a task for ‘common’ users.

11

Another example. When I’ve uninstalled my antivirus, and so I had no antivirus in my pc, the red protection alert in the low right corner of the screen hasn’t appeared!
Why???

12

I just performed a simple uninstall of avast. I did get the “unprotected” warning from Windows security center.

The legacy_asw… keys were still present after the uninstall.

I did not run aswclear.exe.

I then installed Kaspersky and it installed without complaint.

I am guessing that fabiofr may have a corrupted setup of avast on the system. I would have expected aswclear.exe to perform enough of a cleanup to allow other av’s to install.

It would be useful to look at the running processes in task manager and see if any ash… or asw… processes are running on the system.

13

Greetings,

May I suggest that these uninstall / install problems with security applications are due to a corrupted Repository in the Windows Security Centre (WSC) which is part of the Windows Management Instrumentation Service (WMI). WSC then gives erroneous reports about antivirus and/or firewall applications.

It is first necessary to repair the Repository
then advisable to install a MS Win XP update which makes the Repository more stable.

Repair:
At a command prompt:
net stop winmgmt
rd /S /Q %systemroot%\system32\wbem\Repository
net start winmgmt

reboot PC and a new repaired Repository will be created.

Then get the MS update from
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933062/en-us

Install it, and WSC should then keep up-to-date with changes to security applications.

Hope this helps
Maurice

14

Maurice, it does not work when old legacy drivers are kept after bad uninstallation processes.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=34231.msg287008#msg287008
I mean, it works, but it is not enough.

15

Tech,
We haven’t heard whether or not 933062 has helped fabiofr and his WSC reporting.

My WSC has been behaving since 933062, possibly because for quite some time my uninstallation of security applications has been scrupulous - you could say paranoid!!

  1. Shut down all security apps
  2. Uninstall with Revouninstaller at highest setting
  3. Remove drivers via Device Manager (hidden devices)
  4. Manual search of registry with Regedit and RegSeeker (also finds Legacies)
  5. Restart and disable other security apps before installing new app.
    (except when installing OA updates)

I note that at present my registry contains LEGACIES:
6 x _ASW*, 3 x _AVAST*,3 x _OA* and 2 x _SB*
but I do not see a way to find whether or not they belong to the currently installed security apps or to previous ones.

Since I’m well past my competancy level, I’ll bow out of this one now.

Regards
Maurice

16

Is the avast4 folder on you program files? Can you check inside the temp and see is there any files or folder related with avast? If yes try delete them. Im sure that im telling a newbie question.

17

If fabiofr continues to experience this problem it would probably be worthwhile to download the new avast! uninstall utility from here and run it.

If, when it is run, there are any error messages please post them here.

18

If reboot is necessary for uninstallation, using RevoUninstaller will be, imho, worse than using just the uninstaller. Revo will remove the files necessaries to finish the uninstallation after boot and will break the process, whatever is the level (moderate, etc.).

19

In support of Tech’s remarks as the avast security becomes stronger I think it will be essential to manage removal with avast tools designed for their specific purpose.

20

Sure, RevoUninstaller won’t be able to uninstall avast properly.