Tech support

I’m fixing an older relatives laptop, windows 7, it’s running the paid version of avast, pretty sure it’s “premium security” where I’m posting now. He was complaining that things were running slower, so I poked around a bit to see what was running. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I did notice when running msconfig.exe in the Services tab, that everything Avast related was listed twice.

Is that normal? Is there any chance there’s two avast instances “fighting” each other and that’s bogging things down?

What things can I check to confirm that Avast is the only antivirus running (and only one avast), and that is running like it’s supposed to? For example, what should I see in the task mgr, services, startup, how many Avast folders in programs, etc.

Thanks!

First, be sure to get rid of all remnants of any prior installed AV(s)…!!
https://support.avast.com/article/11/

Then:

  1. Download Avast Premium Security: https://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avast_premium_security_setup_offline.exe
  2. Follow instructions: https://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility (Run this tool for all prior installed Avast versions…!!)
  3. Reinstall Avast with the downloaded installer from point 1.
  4. Reboot.

Great, what information do I need to continue using the remaining time on the current license? Anything I should collect before doing this?

https://support.avast.com/en-ww/article/Activate-Premium-Security/