I am trying to install Avast on my new laptop (it worked on my old one just fine). The new one is running the same OS, XP Pro. But when I start this one up, Avast gives me an error message that says it will not protect incoming mail, web, etc.
When I open Avast On Access Scanner, it tells me that Web Shield and Outlook/Exchange are both not active: “provider is waiting for a subsystem to start.”
I understand that Outlook/Exchange won’t be active until those programs are open.
The use of another resident AV (McAfee) is no doubt causing the problem.
Having two resident scanners installed is not recommended as rather than provide twice the protection it can cause conflicts that could leave you more vulnerable.
You have to make a choice on which AV you are going to use and uninstall the other as even when disabled they can still conflict as the resident AV loads low level virtual device drivers. This is how they intercept file to scan them before they are executed/modified/saved and it is this function that can conflict.
Sometimes, McAfee won’t be completely removed if, before, you do not uninstall Avast, including the use of its “Uninstall Application” if necessary (www.avast.com/eng/faq-install-uninstall-avast.html).
