After installing Avast 4.8 the sys tray icons don’t show, so I’ve uninstalled Avast 4.8, and am opperating without a antivirus program. My OS is win xp with sp2.
How do I solve this problem?
Gary
avast! icon missing - As a temporary measure until this is resolved you can create a desktop shortcut for this file C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashDisp.exe (the avast icon and interface to the providers). Right click on the file and select Send To, Desktop (create shortcut). You will need to run this after each boot until the problem is resolved.
This is the most common cause of the icons going walk about:
What other security based software do you have that might block new startup entries, e.g. Spybot S&D (TeaTimer), AdAware (AdWatch), SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor (StartUpGuard or OnGuard), PrevX, WinPatrol, ProcessGuard, etc. ?
Check the option in the Appearance tab of Program Settings. Or Make a link to ashdisp.exe in your startup folder.
Hi DavidR
Thank you for your suggestion. But I will wait for this to be resolved as I don’t have any icons on my desktop by choice, as I like an uncluttered desktop. I even autohide the taskbar.
As for other security, I use Spybot, but do not use TeaTimer as it causes other problems. I also use AdAware, but do not use AdWatch. As for antivirus, I’ve installed Avira which is also free, but has a nag screen, so I prefer Avast. I do hope that this problem is resolved soon.
Gary
If you want an uncluttered desktop drag the shortcut down to the quick launch area, you can do it from there.
Waiting for this to be resolved isn’t really an option as this isn’t something that is a common problem to all avast users. So you have to take action to resolve it using the suggested options.
If you still have avira installed you should uninstall it, having two resident scanners installed is not recommended as rather than provide twice the protection it can cause conflicts that could leave you more vulnerable.
I have no icons displayed on my desktop, though there are some there, just hidden and I also use RocketDock.
Hi DavidR,
I uninstalled Avast and only have Avira installed.
I think that you have misunderstood my post. The Avast icon shows in the sys tray, but the other ones don’t show. The ones that don’t show are my Firewall, Arovax Shield, and Clockwise. They all showed up in the older versions of Avast. This only started with ver 4.8.
Gary
avast should have no impact on other icons in the system try, it hasn’t done on mine on any version in the last 4 years. There is nothing included in the 4.7 to 4.8 update that should have any interaction with icons.
The only time I have seen this reported on the forums is usually with win9x which is poor at managing system resources and some see their icons go from the system tray.
Hi DaveR,
Then why do mine? I don’t think that Win xp is 9x, is it?
Gary
No winXP isn’t win9x, the example was the only time I have heard of the system tray icons going walk about was in win9x and usually as a result of low resources. Since winXP has better resource management that shouldn’t happen and I don’t know why it would.
Try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. Though I doubt would have any impact.
If that doesn’t work try, uninstall, reboot, install, reboot.
Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.
Or maybe try disabling the self-defense module (Avast settings>Troubleshooting) since it is one of the major differences between 4.8 and the previous versions, which raises conflict issue with some other applications. Note that you will need to restart the machine.
If it were the self-defence module, which I doubt, then I would expect there to be many, many, more topics on the forums about other system tray icons missing and I just don’t see that.
I’ve solved the problem with the disappearing icons.
I found a older build of ver 4.7 dated June 03/06 on my hard drive.
I installed it, then updated (huge update) then rebooted and all of my sys tray icons showed up.
My greatest thanks for all of the suggestions.
repairman1946
You’re welcome, thanks for the feedback, glad that things are back to normal now.
Did the update take you to 4.8 or are you still on 4.7?
Probably, it is correctly updated to 4.8 now. There must have been something wrong with the original 4.8 update process. DavidR seems to have been right about pinning down the problem since it turns out to be basically due to imperfect installation rather than some kind of inter-application compatibility. Usually, I try not to step in trouble-shooting thread since regular browsers here know Avast much more than I do but I happened to stumble upon this one since it is in the general topic board.