I am having strenuous difficulty with my free version of avast.
It started when my protection ran out and I had to register my product. Sounds typical, right? Well, when I put the key in, it wouldn’t accept it. I sent an email to avast, asking why this was; but have yet to receive a reply.
Then I thought to un-install avast. The only problem is: There’s no un-install program. It has gone from my computer. So then I thought, “delete the folder”. But that wouldn’t work, as it said that Avast was still in use. So I tried cosing it down by my Task manager, but it wouldn’t shut down. It refused to stop running, saying “Access is denied”.
So, for those of you who were Tl;Dr:
Avast stopped working. Registration key won’t work. Can’t un-install. Can’t renew Avast and keep computer protected. At risk of viruses.
Oh, and I hope this isn’t some sort of ruse to make me buy the product, cos I’ve been able to register my free version of avast over ad over.
When you say that protection ran out, would appear to relate to avast 4.8 as avast 5.0 has only been out for five months. So if you had 4.8 and tried to enter a 5.0 key it would fail and vice versa.
Have you updated from 4.8 to 5.0 by installing 5.0 over 4.8 ?
If so and there is no entry in add remove programs you have a corrupt installation and it may be better to do a clean install:
Download the latest version of avast, 5.0.545 http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (if you didn’t save your last download). Use that when you reinstall.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, aswClear5.exe find it here and save it to your HDD (it has uninstall tools for both 4.8 and 5.0).
Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can’t do that start from the next step), reboot.- 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility from safe mode, first for 4.8 if previously installed and then for 5.0, once complete reboot into normal mode.- 3. install the latest version, reboot.