I have been using Avast previously and have been very pleased. I recently loaded a new hard drive w/ XP and chose Avast as my virus protection. It started well but after a couple of days, I get the red circle slash in the lower right status . I have followed the directions to get it working again but with no success. When I right click “my computer”/ “manage” / “Services and Applications” / “services” several of the Avast services are stuck on manual rather than automatic. I have gone to “add remove programs” and tried to repair, which it says it does but when I reboot the problem remains.
I’m sure there is a blindingly simple fix… Can someone please walk me through it?
Does this computer come with any other antivirus preinstalled (OEM)?
Some infections could destroy avast protection… can you test full computer on-line scanning? Kaspersky (very good detection rates) ESET NOD32 Trendmicro housecall F-Secure BitDefender (free removal of the malware)
There is no other virus protection running. I had already read your online scan suggestion and have already run it using Kaspersky. I thought I may have found a fix in that the firewall setting didn’t allow Avst through changed it and seemed to work fine on re-boot, but the second time around the red circle slash was back.
No other AV running unfortunately isn’t enough, resident scanners load low level drivers and even when you aren’t running the AV these drivers are still loaded and it is these that can conflict.
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.
Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
David, thanks for the response! This is a brand new Hard Drive w/ the base XP Home Edition running on it. to my knowledge there is no other VP loaded or running.
OK some new systems (not new HDDs) come with a trial version of an AV installed and it can screw things up.
User selected elements of avast Home/Pro I’m not entirely sure (if this is nothing to do with the WHS version of avast), are set to manual by default, e.g. the Web Shield, ashWebSv.exe and the email scanner, ashMaiSv.exe (see image). Are these the ones you mean ?
Does the Red circle go away after a period of time or not ?
What avast processes are running in Task Manager, they begin with ash or asw, see image ?
Everything seems to be set up as you described in your post. The only thing I can find is that a couple of Avast functions (mail scanner and web scanner), apparently correctly set to manual, do not start automatically. After start up, I must manually start them. Meanwhile, the red circle slash never goes away. Under task manager, all processes seem to be working and are named as you mentioned in your post.
I am stumped… I have tried to uninstall and then reinstall to see if that would fix the problem, it hasn’t seemed to yet.
So the ashServ.exe is running in task manager, that is strange as that I would have though would have been the primary service that would trigger this red circle issue.
Try what Alan suggests as it is possible that there is some conflict, which if the avast services are delayed might resolve.
What is your firewall ?
Do you have any other security applications installed ?