In April 2012, I purchased a 3-year license for Avast Business Pro 7. The license expires in April 2015. The software that came with the license included BPP version 1.1.132.15.
I installed that BPP version and it worked fine until July 16, 2013. On that date the console threw a “license warning” and reverted to “Waiting for Trial” status. All attempts to reinsert the license failed. They all fail with a Windows Application Error involving LicenseUtil.exe.
I filed a ticket with Avast support on this issue on July 19. The only response I’ve received from Avast is: “You are using an outdated product. Avast Business Protection is no longer supported. Your license has been upgraded to Avast Endpoint Protection. You need to install the latest version of SOA.”
I currently have a mixture of Avast Endpoint Version 7.x and 8.x clients installed on workstations on the network.
I tried to install the Avast Version 8 SOA (SOA version 1.3.2.21). It accepted the license and “saw” the workstations on my network. However, it would not connect with them. It shows them all with a question mark.
The only way I know of to force the SOA to connect to the workstations is to push Avast Endpoint Version 8.x to them.
I cannot do this because Avast Endpoint Version 8 contains bugs that break the POP/SMTP email clients on my workstations. Endpoint 8.x defaults to expecting/demanding POP/SMTP clients to use SSL connections. Even though these clients are not configured to use SSL, Avast keeps throwing up “Invalid SSL Certificate” error windows on an unpredictable basis when people try to download or upload email. Turning off “SSL Scanning” in the Endpoint client does not stop this. Neither does pressing the button in the error window to permanently accept an exclusion for the certificates. On Thunderbird clients, these Avast error messages are accompanied by Windows Application errors and, sometimes, Thunderbird crashes. I cannot use SSL connections even if I wanted to, because the email servers we use do not permit them. The only reliable way to stop these errors from occurring is to uninstall Endpoint version 8.x and reinstall version 7.x on those machines.
Therefore I must have the ability to manage Endpoint Version 7.x clients until Avast acknowledges and fixes these bugs. Since the BPP broke I am unable to do so. I can uninstall Endpoint 8 but when I reinstall Endpoint 7 it can’t “see” the server and will not pick up a license.
I have recently learned that I apparently should have been given SOA version 1.2.2.8 with Version 7 of Avast. I do not know why I was given the wrong administration console software at that time. However, it seems to me my only possible course of action now is to try to install SOA version 1.2.2.8. It should be able to see and manage Endpoint 7 clients.
I have tried to find an installer for SOA 1.2.2.8 without success. There are links on the Avast website that allegedly point to such an installer, but in reality they all lead to SOA version 1.3.2.21.
So, I am asking here:
Does anyone have the SOA version 1.2.2.8 installer software and would be willing to let me have a copy? If so, please contact me at kend@stic-cil.org.
Thank you.
