Setup Folder Question

Hi

I was wondering if the “setup” folder inside C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5. Can it be deleted? If its only need to uninstall. I can zip it up and move it to my backup drive. Want to save space on my main windows partition.

Thanks for any info.

No. It can’t be removed.
It has, among a lot of other things, the virus definitions.

Sorry but I have to revive this thread with a new question.

Some Russian users complain that there Setup folder is too big and contains more than 175Mb of VPX, ORI and other files. One user says that he has five ORI files dated from Feruary to December. They wonder if Avast will grow in size and ask how to remove “junk” files from Setup folder.

I checked my Setup folder. It weighs 93.5Mb and has only one SETTINGS.ORI file. I look through the files and found only the necessary ones.

Could anybody advise any solution to reduce the Setup folder size?

Hi George Yves

Please try this

After uninstalling the Avast, We can remove the Avast setup folder (C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5)in the Safe Mode.

Even there is a chance for removing that folder with the help of aswclear.exe.(http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear.exe)

Then You can go for a fresh installation in the Normal Mode with the same license file activation.

Then have a check of the setup folder size.

Thanks.

George, two things:

  1. Internally, set avast to trim the log files. Disable the debug log. Set the reports size.
  2. Externally, you can use CCleaner and check to delete avast temporary files. Some users will complain about using a 3rd party tool to manage avast files, but, in all my experiences, avast installation never gets corrupt because of that.

iYogisolutions1
To make it short, you advise the complete re-installation?

Follow Tech’s advice. :wink:

Thank you, Tech.

I’ll tell them to do this but I can’t understand how it can reduce the setup folder size.

2. Externally, you can use CCleaner and check to delete avast temporary files. Some users will complain about using a 3rd party tool to manage avast files, but, in all my experiences, avast installation never gets corrupt because of that.
Ccleaner was the first thing I told them to use but they say that it deletes only some Kb instead of Mb.

Well, it wont, but it will prevent it to grow even bigger.
The cleanup must be done manually. :wink:

Manually? I am not sure that most users (and me too) can know what files to delete there. Or you mean something else?

The .VPX files are crucial as they are like check files for crucial elements of avast, deletion of any of those could have an adverse impact.

I too only have about 90MB for the whole Setup folder and only 1 .ori file (settings.ori) like you.

So it would be interesting to find out actually what they have in that folder, if you have utility something like Print Folders (I use this), to give a print out of the contents of a folder. http://www.stratopoint.com/pfolders.htm

Once installed it gives a right click menu option to print the folder.

Well, to start with: How big is their folder…??
Maybe a screenshot could help to go into detail.

Thank you, DavidR.

I will ask such users to post screenshots or lists of their files.

Also ask them about avast version and OS.

The path you mentioned is there from Avast 5. That means that they have been updating avast since then (about a year).

1_ Backup license file.

2_ Run the removal utility under Windows Safe Mode. Run it several times, selecting for each run each version / edition of Avast you ever had installed (and/or updated, like for example, from avast 5 to avast 6.x). If necessary, correct the selected folder in the removal utility.

3_ Manually search and delete any (hidden) folders that contain “avast” or “alwil” in their names (like, for example, “avast 5”).

4_ Under Windows Normal Mode, with the latest stable version of avast, “right click → run as administrator” on the setup.exe.

5_ After the installation, reboot immediately, without configuring anything else.

6_ Configure, update and insert your backed up license.

The folders of avast are not “static” in size, and they may get to 160MB “sometimes” too, because of the increment definitions updates. After a while, avast “cleans” itself.

George Yves, didn’t mention a path, that is from the old first post from July 2010, since his question was related he revived the topic.

Yes, but then why to post in this old topic?

In any case, the general instructions are still valid so to “clean” the folders.

Because as I said it a question about the setup folder.

At last I got some data to play with.

First, user ivanovich says he has Win7 Start. He installed AIS 6.0.1289 on Oct 11, 2011 and updated it to 6.0.1367 on Nov 29, 2011. This user posted a lot of attached screenshots but the setup folder can be viewed only in three of them: here, here and here.

Second, user About Blank shows his Avast version in his signature and his screenshot of the setup folder in the attachment.

Well I would say About Blank as an AIS user is probably seeing what is normal as there are three sandbox relater entries, ais_snz?-?.vpx. He is also going to have the firewall and anti-spam elements also.

It looks similar for ivanovich as he too is using AIS.