I’m using a Gateway P-6831FX laptop (roughly 6 months old now), Intel Core 2 Duo (1.66 each), Vista Home, 3 GB RAM and Avast 4.8 (8/17 - today’s - database file). I keep trying to run a thorough specific folder scan, but whenever it hits something in Windows’ System32 the computer completely shuts down. There’s no freeze or anything - it just dies as if someone pulled the plug. I’ve run it a few times with this result. Everything is clean and I made sure to leave the computer off before I ran it this last time so that it would be nice and cool. I DID do a boot scan, as well, but I ran into the same problem. Did I catch myself an annoying little virus or something?
Vista is a very… shall we say “rough around the edges” OS. It has a lot of issues. Laptop versions of Vista are often even worse because the laptop cannot always completely handle Vista. Try turning off Windows Aero and see if that helps.
Another option: This might be avast! fault, try this: uninstall avast! and install AVG or another free AV. Run a scan. If it does the same thing, some of your system files may be corrupted.
Can you go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report)? This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report).
After avast! disappears, check the end of the report file - the “troublesome” file is likely to be close to the end (close in the sense that this particular file will probably not be written in the report, but the previous one will be the last line, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess). We would certainly like to have this file - if it really causes problems to avast! - so that we could fix the problem.
The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt
Thanks for all the help everyone - here’s my update.
SpeedFan is a great program - thanks for the suggestion, YoKenny. But no, as I originally posted, I made sure that the airways were not blocked and that the computer was not hot. I did uninstall Avast after another failed attempt and I downloaded the free trial of AVG. After running a few specific folder scans, including the System32 folder in Windows that caused Avast to crash, everything seems to be fine. No viruses were detected and no shut down occured. :S So I guess this must be an issue with one of Avast’s updates.
I did try to create a report file, but nothing was logged from the failed attempts. I made sure to include “OK files” and I checked all the reports, although I know the specific one was the Simple User Interface.txt.
So, overall, I appreciate the assistance from everyone. I must especially agree with PotatoMan that Vista is bug-tacular, although I lament that I haven’t found a version of Linux I feel comfortable with at this time. :S
did you try a boot time scan right click the ball, update and schedule- oops not available with Vista?
SAFE MODE SCAN?
did you say if 32 or 64 bit vista?
you might start here http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407
work through it then go to the Vista page
lots of little tricks
“Write when you get work”
