Right-Click Context Menu Scan No Longer Working in Win7 (Windows Explorer)

system · 2015-04-24T18:03:01.000Z

Hi,

Win7, Home Premium, x64, SP1 using Avast Free 2015.10.2.2215 vdv 150424-0

I updated to Avast 2015 about one to two weeks ago. Prior to that, I had no problems with Avast at all. I’ve had Avast on this PC since I bought it 2 years ago. Besides Windows Defender, it’s the only real-time active virus protection on the machine. I have run at least 1 quick scan and 1 full scan since then as part of my regular routine - nothing found.

Today I downloaded a zip file into my Downloads folder and as I always do in that circumstance, I found it in an Explorer window, right clicked, and clicked on the Avast “Scan…” item. But for the first time ever, it didn’t work. Absolutely nothing happened.

I went to the Avast website for support and was going to open a ticket when a dialog came up telling me I could call in for free support and I figured that would be a much faster option so I tried it.

The support tech was very nice and suggested taking control of my machine to run some diagnostics. I agreed and let him do so. His initial prognosis after also looking through my Program Files folder was that I had another antivirus which was causing a conflict. He came to this conclusion when he found a folder with the name “Trend Micro”. However, as I showed him, it ONLY held the exe for HijackThis, the log creation tool. It does not “run” unless I run it, and besides, it’s not a realtime antivirus anyway. I also run Threatfire, which is a vector analyzer and not real-time AV and which has NEVER conflicted with my Antivirus installs on any machine, including this one with Avast (both installed since purchase of PC).

He got a bit hung up on HijackThis, indicating that it must be because of that, plus all the temp files he saw in my temp folder, plus he also looked through the Windows Error Reporting area of my control panel, saw quite a few error reports, mostly in the bios area - showing various conflicts, NONE of which showed Avast involved, (and the most recent batch of errors was from January), all of which to him indicated a computer with poor maintenance (which I’d debate to some extent).

In the end, his solution was to try sell me a 1 year service contract for $179 where, remotely, they would “make my machine like new without you having to do anything”, OR, a one-time engineering support for $119 where they would “solve this conflict issue.”

Call me paranoid, but I got the impression that this was more about selling me a contract than actually helping me. He ran an Avast Total Support tool scan and it came up all green except for a note about Windows update missing important security and stability updates - which in fact is incorrect - all important updates are in and only a few optional updates which relate to Windows Phone interactions with the PC are not installed since I don’t have a Windows Phone, and a note about “very little free disk space” related to my 23GB of free space(!). The results code showing at the bottom of the tool is 14002000. Not sure what that means.

So… I’m hoping someone here might offer me some suggestions, solutions, etc. I suppose I’m a bit freaked out too since the tech kept saying things like “Avast is running in an unsecured way” & “Avast obviously has limited access to your machine due to these conflicts” and things like that. So I’m wondering if I have any protection at all. Like I said at the top of this post, I have run scans, but based on the tech’s comments, I wonder if they are actually scanning anything or if they would tell me if they find anything.

Eddy · 2015-04-24T18:19:37.000Z

As has been explained many times, that support phone number is a third party and they really suck.
Don’t waste time and/or money on them.

23 Gb free is nowadays considered not much, so that part is right although your system should work without a problem with it.

I see you are using a old(er) version of avast.
I suggest to perform a clean installation of the latest version and see if scan from the explore menu is working again.
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=169255.msg1203279#msg1203279

system · 2015-04-24T18:35:56.000Z

Thanks for your post.

I had not seen the many explanations regarding the suckage of the phone support since I admit that I don’t regularly page through this forum unless I have a problem and thankfully it’s been a while since I’ve had a problem with Avast that required me coming here. Now I wish I had. Knowing they’re a third party has me freaking a bit that after letting them into my machine, that they have left something behind, a back door, what have you - jeez. I’m a bit sick about that now. How could I know? Should I do anything to look for something? Ugh. :-[

Regarding “old(er) version of avast”, I update when Avast tells me I need to update and right now I’m looking at a green screen telling me that “Everything is up-to-date”. But I see that on Download.com the exe is 2015.10.2.2218 which is darn close to 2015.10.2.2215 and as I said, Avast isn’t telling me to update.

I just downloaded. Can I just run the install exe or do I need to use the Avast removal tool to uninstall everything and start from scratch? I won’t be happy if that’s what I have to do because I already had to do that once to get 2015 installed and I had to do some housekeeping to get it to not keep shutting down Firefox, including removing the browser plugin.

Para-Noid · 2015-04-24T18:49:10.000Z

You can install over the top or if that fails try it from scratch. I know you don’t want to do a clean install.
If you think you may have other issues follow these instructions https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.msg451454#msg451454
I’m leaning towards the “other issues”.

I don’t know of anyone using Hijack This anymore. Our malware specialist us Farbar Recovery Scan Tool (FRST).

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