Slow Startup of Avast

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I recently put Avast on an older Toshiba laptop with W98SE and 64 mb Ram. I have used it on a similar tower in the past and it worked fine.
But on the laptop it takes several minutes for Avast to completely start, ie til the icon appears in the sys tray. All the while, the computer chatters away and won’t do much else.
Is this normal for an older computer?
Thanks for the help.

2

Well, I’m afraid the size of RAM may be a problem.
The virus database is growing… and 64MB might be too low for its initialization (or subsequent updates, for that matter). If the OS starts swapping, it may really take quite a while.

3

Thanks for the information.

It does eventually initialize and update, but it does consume all the computer resources til it is done. Then, the computer runs as normal.
This now makes sense.
Is there another antivirus program that will work better on an old W98 computer?

4

Nowadays, you have no better options… sorry.

5

Thanks–well, I feel fortunate to have Avast.

6

I did a little experiment… you can try to download this package and unpack its content into avast! installation folder (you’ll need to overwrite the current aswScan.dll file - which is in use when avast! is running, so you’ll have to do it in DOS or safe mode).
It’s possible that loading of avast! will be faster with this… though even if it works,

  • it’s just postponing the inevitable, because the virus database grows and it’s hard to do anything about it
  • it changes only avast! initialization, not the updating - which is probably even more memory intensive, i.e. worse
7

Thank you for the help.

What does this package do? Will Avast still provide the same on-access and on-demand scanning?

I will try it and post results.

8

I installed the package in SafeMode and when I did a restart, I got a message: Error Starting Program–The ASWSCAN.DLL file is linked to missing export ASWCMNB.DLL:?ggzread@@YAHPAXOlPAl@z.

I proceeded and got a message from Avast to send an error report. Avast did not start.

Any suggestion?

9

Ah, damn, the dependent library has changed in between…
OK, please try again (I updated the package) if it’s any better.

10

It is the cause of your computer RAM. As I know, my laptop which is only have 248 mb RAM can’t even really handle it after install avast as it takes 4-5 minutes to start everything up but the other laptop which is 512 mb RAM having no problem with avast. So you need more RAM as 64 mb of ram is too little and also cant even do much with it.

11

I tried the new package and it worked with the below startup time results (from start of computer through complete initialization of Avast)(several tests):

Original aswScan.dll–start time = 4 mins 44 sec.
4 mins 20 sec.

Your package–start time = 4 mins 9 secs.
4 mins 19 secs
4 mins 0 secs

Thanks for your help.

12

Hmm, so the improvement is small, if any… well, I’ll keep the changed code as it shouldn’t hurt, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything better for you.

13

Igor,thanks again for your help.