[Resolved] Avast free (594) takes quite long after boot to initialize

Hi guys,

on my machine (Win XP SP3, incl. all updates, Pentium 4 2,6Ghz, 2Gb Ram, Intel 865G onboard graphics) Avast 5 (594) takes pretty long to initialize after a fresh boot. (and there are no other third party services or programs loading apart from sound, Intel graphics driver and printer:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8320/240720100803099.png
)

At first, Avast took 30 seconds after boot to go from the exclamation mark (being shown in the tray - with two services not loaded yet) to working properly.

Now I enabled troubleshoot mode with Avast services being loaded after Win services - however it takes about the same time (with Avast showing the red X at first for 25 seconds, then going to the exclamation mark and then working) - but with the difference that my machine isn’t paralyzed for this 30 seconds.

I took a little shot and put it on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhPWYl50SvY

Can you tell me what’s wrong (respectively what Windows services cause that delay - if any) or at least if this behaviour is normal?

thanks

Thank you for the screen shot, but I make it a point not to go out on an unknown link, especially U-tube due to malware. You could post a screen shot next time, but your description was sufficient.

The Avast shields do not start up all at once on boot/start-up. Here is a response from Vlk of Avast to explain (4th post down): http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=61179.0.

If you continue to have a red “X” or the yellow “!” or yellow triangle or a warning that your system is unsecured, then please let us know so we can help you.

You may want to look and see what else is loading on your machine at start up, and if they are really necessary. Some may be competing with Avast (like a firewall), and others may not be needed. Please let me know if you have further questions. Thank you.

I watched the video and didn’t see anything to be concerned about. XP is notoriously quirky with loading things at bootup. Mine changes frequently, sometimes pausing at the welcome screen for 20-25 seconds (which I think is the intended process and what I prefer) before showing the desktop and then showing all the systray icons it should with Avast! fully enabled, and then sometimes only showing the welcome screen for a second and going right to the desktop and showing Avast! not completely loaded as you show in your video for about 15 seconds. When it does this, the other normal systray icons such as the volume control and the Comodo firewall usually do not show up at all. I can get the Comodo one to appear by just opening it’s gui from the desktop icon. This is a known glitch in XP and really not much can be done about it except to get a free utility called Startupdelayer and playing around with it until you get everything loading right. You have to remember though that even if an icon does not show, the program itself is still running. Another thing with using the startupdelayer is that if you want to uninstall something that it is controlling, you have to remove that control first or the uninstallation may not complete correctly.

I have learned to live with this quirky behavior without using the delayer and I guess you will have to as well.

gibdemaffenzucker,

If you feel that your issue is now resolved/fixed, please go back to the open post in this topic, click the modify button in that Post and change the title/subject, add [Resolved] to the beginning of the title to close this thread. Thank you. :slight_smile:

In this thread (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=61179.0) I read that the problems will likley be solved in version 5.1 - when will this version be released?

That is the same link I gave you in my post #1 from Vlk. We do not know when this release will be available as of yet.

i have the same problem.

  1. on first reboot, the welcome screen takes 5 seconds
  2. and then avast tray icon has exclamation mark. this happes about 10-15 seconds before it spins and exclamation mark gone
  3. after it spins, the welcome sound playing
  4. takes 90 seconds before the red LED stops

after updates virus database, avast icon has red cross on start up before it changes into exclamation mark. if i restart the machine twice, the red cross gone, but still have the exclamation mark. ( found it by accident) ::slight_smile:

well, i got this problem since i did fresh install on my newest PC. and on my old PC (win XP) i have this problem too (with avast 4.8 ) I think avast always takes some times to work, and IMO 90 seconds is not that long. On my old machine, it need 11-16 minutes before it ready to use. (with avast 4.8 )

hope the new version will solved it.