Hi, one week ago I done a repair af avast from control panel to solve a problem. All went good, but I have noticed that each time I try a repair the weight of avast on my hard disk C increase. Before the repair avast took about 252 MB on my hard disk, now after repair avast weight is 316 MB. Is there a reason for this increase?
Hi Selen,
I’m just a forum member, but I have some questions that could help in solving your issue.
You did the repair one week ago?
Please note there has been multiple definition updates during this time.
also what version are you running on?
The VPS definitions have been correctly updated during this week, I have received the last update just this morning. I have avast 7.0.1426 and all is working well. In the past I done others repair to solve some issues and each time I noticed this increase in weight of the program. I’m curious to know why this happens.
I really don’t understand the reason of this great increase in weight. I have only used the repair function of the program, nothing else…
During the Repair it will also have carried out an update check I believe.
So if you didn’t have the latest virus definitions the update creates the ‘new’ virus definitions folder, this folder is essentially a copy of the previous/current virus definitions folder + the incremental update. The avast housekeeping periodically removes the old def sub-folders.
Each one of these sub-folders is quite large, so that could well account for the rise, this however, is a fluid thing as it will balance out as the old folders are removed in the avast housekeeping.
I understand what you say, but my problem is that this increase in weight remains. It’s not the first time that I try a repair of avast and each time this increase in weight has remained.I have noticed that avast removes periodically the old folders with old virus definitions, this happens each day… my problem is that the program weight after a repair doesn’t decrease. I have also noticed that after a repair avast creates a new icon on my desktop. This icon is a clone of the original icon. Is this normal?
It will balance itself out over time, it must have decreased otherwise it would be even greater than the 316mb you mentioned. Think of the 252mb size as a base line, it should drop back down to that area, but after a virus definitions update (or repair) it is going to rise until the avast houskeeping removes the old defs sub-folder/s.
In all honesty in the bigger scheme of things (large hard drives) the extra 60mb is a drop in the ocean, but that is just me I rarely monitor one area of my hard disk, but look at it as a whole.
I don’t know why the duplicate icon on the desktop, that in itself is a shortcut only to the program and you would have to hover over it (this shows the full path to the file it will run when you click it), to see if it is a true duplicate.
I remember that the first time I installed avast, 2 years ago, his weight was 139 MB on my hard disk. After a repair it become about 200 MB. After another repair 252 MB and with the last repair of one week ago 316 MB. For this reason I say that I think my avast has a problem. The growth has never decreased after a repair. talking about the clone icon I have tryed to open it and I see that it has all the functions of avast interface. I can see all avast menu and I can control all the options, like the original one. That’s very strange 
How about a clean reinstall, this would solve all “problems”… 
I have avast free on 3 computers, and this problem of increase of weight and clone icons has happened on all of them when I needed to use the repair function to solve some problems. So, about some months ago, I tryed also a complete reinstall of avast on one of this 3 pc. Unfortunatley nothing has changed, because when I tryed to do another repair the same problems came back. What can I do?
Two years ago is a lifetime ago in terms of AV products, that could either have been avast 4.8 or avast 5, additional features have been added in avast 6 & 7 and things are done differently to try to speed things up.
Two years ago I had avast version 5, I know that things are changed with new versions, but this problem linked to the repair of avast exists since that date. Each time I done a repair I saw this increase in growth, but I thought it was a temporary problem and I deceided to ignore it. Now I have finally deceided to explain my problem here on this forum, just because it persists and also to see if other avast users have a similar issue.
I also think they were working in a much reliable repair function for the latest 7 beta.
Although, when I needed to use it, from de 42 to 43 beta it failed again 
I hope this function will be improved in the future, that someone has experienced this kind of problems and can be able to fix it…
Sorry I honestly can see this at all, ignore what has gone before, avast 5&6. Avast 7 when installed is about 250MB on your hard drive, if you were seeing a permanent increase every time you used Repair then it would now be consuming much more.
A Repair shouldn’t increase the size (other than I have mentioned if it also does a virus definitions update), but check the integrity of the installation, that may or may not mean ‘replacing’ a file/s that are damaged, etc. This would generally be replacing a file with one of the same size.
So I can’t get a handle on this, a repair increasing the size by over 60mb and it never coming back down.
Since my last post with an image of my avast size Reply #4, I have had another avast update, now look at the size 315mb, wow what a massive jump. This is exactly as described the creation of the new defs sub-folder for the latest definitions. When the avast housekeeping does it job and removes old defs sub-folders it will drop again or there would be no way my other image would have been showing 235mb.
+1
Since I have upgraded to avast 7 I have done only one repair of avast, just one week ago. Avast jumped from 250 Mb to 316 MB. The other 3 repairs were done in the past, with version 5 and 6, and each time avast increased about 50 MB or more.
When my avast updates his VPS definitions I always see an increase of about 10-20 MB, not more. Then, when avast deletes old folders I can see the decrease of this 10-20 MB. Unfortunately the repair function causes a permanent increase of weight on my hard disk. This happens on all my 3 systems. I hope this problem will not interfere with avast prorection from viruses or other options, because I don’t know how to solve this situation.
VPS update on avast7 would be at least the size of the current defs sub-folder plus the increments.
The current size of the defs sub-folder is around 80mb, so I don’t know what version of avast they have, if avast 7 it can’t possibly be only 10-20mb. See image attachments for two of these defs sub-folders. As I have two defs sub-folders my over all avast size would increase by almost 80mb (image3), but after housekeeping that would drop back down.
So I really have no idea what is going on with your systems.
I understand perfectly what you say…I don’t know what’s happening on my 3 systems. The current size of my subfolder, containing VPS definitions is 25 MB. I have windows XP and this is what shows me:
Hard disk C/Program Files/ Awil Software/ Avast 5/defs/12062100 and the dimension is 25 MB