TO: All users of avast! 7 with problems

As I read through the Forums about avast! 7 users being unhappy and bailing to other anti-virus products:

  1. It took 2 months before avast! 6 was ready for commercial distribution

  2. avast! 7 is only 1 week old now

  3. Everything new is not fully debugged. This is all software companies, anybody remember Intuit QuickBooks 2000 (never was usable)

  4. Those who adopt early get to reap the benifits of their actions.

  5. I always take a “wait and see” attitude so I don’t “open a can of worms” This statement is NOT limited to avast! or anti-virus)

  6. avast! 6 is a great product, and all problem 7 users should go back to 6 for a month or so!

39 years as I failure analysis engineer, this advise on new software releases is the best advise you will ever get!

I have included the URL to avast! 6.0.1367: www.advantage77.com/Files/setup_av_pro_601367.exe

You’re advertising your own web site 24/7 here, and you’re inciting people to downgrade to V6, enough is enough.

NO. Downgrade is never the solution.
Besides, all the problems that you mention and, specially, the worst one (update/upgrade problem) is NOT related to the version 7. It was related to the virus definitions and it could have happened at any time. avast! 7 was being tested internally for much more than 2 months.
Please, do not bad advise in avast! forums :slight_smile:

I aggree 1000% and the download link and repetitive link posting to your site needs to be removed.

Hi!

I installed ‘avast! Free Antivirus 7.0.1407’ on 5 computers and everything is running very well. ;D

HDW38

More of the same from you, eh J.R.? ::slight_smile:

Just to re-state what I said before…these are not your customers…

And please don’t quote Engvall at me again…

Avast 7 is also running fine for me…You seem to give poor advice…I shall stay away from your site ???

While I agree that advertising his site (multiple times) is a problem, downgrading to v6 is a legitimate user response to the problems with the v7 install, and should be made easier by providing official (within avast.com) links to previous versions (I got mine from a 3rd party site, which while it works, I’m not really comfortable with). Since updating avast! is typically done from within the program (versus downloading, saving and then installing), it’s not common for people to have access to a previous version on their own machine.

I realize there are issues with officially providing access to previous versions (especially as the versions get older), but a well-written disclaimer on the download page should minimize those problems.

I updated to v7 last week, and because I had been installing other software and added a new piece of hardware around the same time, it wasn’t immediately apparent that v7 was the cause of all my boot problems, and I wasted the better part of the entire weekend trying to fix my machine (finally removing v7 fixed everything).

Given that history, you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit leery of trying the “new” install of v7 for now. I can’t afford to waste any more time until I’m sure that other problems aren’t going to appear. Be understanding about the real users of this program and don’t criticize our hesitancy to trust a new version (and ideally, make it simple to allow access to a “known-safe” older version).

Thanks!

@ Muad’Dib>>

edit: and the definitions are fixed now.

Then why did users of v6 who had not updated the program (but did update their virus definitions) not have the boot problems I (and many others) encountered?

Again, understand my skepticism of any simple explanations at this point. During the weekend, at one point I thought my hardware had been damaged (not by avast!, but the booting problems made me suspect something more serious), and I had actually gone to a local store to buy a new computer because I didn’t have time to deal with all the problems I was experiencing (the model I wanted was not in stock, otherwise I probably would have had the new machine by now).

If simply updating virus definitions can cause this serious of a problem, then I may start turning off my automatic updates to even the definitions (which is obviously not a great solution).

also one thing … I would like that you guys stop bashing the Evangelists too, as we’re users , okay, not Avast team members, but users !!! We don’t advertise Avast (well I don’t) and if we have a problem with the software, we say it >>> when it happens and if it happens.

On my side I have an install of V7 IS that runs perfectly fine since the day of release, what should I say, that I got BSODs, that the UI freezes, that shields stop running ? >>> I won’t because it just doesn’t happen on my system. V7 is better than V6, in almost every way… the guys are working hard to improve every single piece of the software, and this is very, very, VISIBLE. Nothing to add now…

I couldn’t agree more. Also most all the problems reported I have observed get actively (if not immediately) resolved.
I have the same v. 7.1407 installed on my system as everyone else and have experience some of the issues mentioned by some Avast users …yet now Avast is running smoothly and effectively. Great piece of Security Software ;D
Hats off to the hard work by all the Avast team, and as there are still some users effected by earlier issues, the developers are continually resolving any issues and all issues as efficiently possible.
I’m just saying :slight_smile:

Definition updates are powerful. There can be more to them then just a simple bundle of signatures. I can’t tell you what to do, I advise against turning off auto-update for Defs, but yes, any given definition update can cause all kinds of problems. When you think about that, they give out 2-3 per day, 365 days per year…and this is the first time you heard of a defenition update causing a problem? Avast! actually does pretty good that considered.

But again I ask, if the definition alone was the problem, why didn’t it affect the v6 users who didn’t update?

Obviously there was either some problem with combination of the definitions and the update, or it was the update alone, but many people here deny the latter explanation, and I have no inside knowledge either way.

And I’m not trying to criticize the evangelists, I realize that are users just like me, but if the explanations they give don’t ring true, then I suspect (and I’ll easily admit that I don’t actually know) that they are simply defending a program out of loyalty rather than actual facts.

Nice attitude RESELLER.
Downgrading from 7 to 6 is never the solution, I had so many problems with softwares I installed, and changing back to older version wasn’t the solution unless it’s a special event, and this one isn’t.
Don’t you get it? that’s all the fun, fixing the problems, you’ll never be better if you don’t study what cause your problems, I took every bug i had and fixed it, and I even turned it into something positive, what’s
better than learning?
Every problem has a solution, and usually that solution isn’t the shortcut path.

Change your attitude, it doesn’t look good not for you and not for your site.

The problem occurred in the vpx code of the early version of the 7.0.1407 installer and it’s fixed now.

While they might have narrowed down what was causing the bulk of the problems, we rarely get a detailed explanation. Just like if you go to the doctor and he explains things in a way that seem half-@$$ed, programmers do the same thing for the same reason…they do not have time to educate you with a crash course in their field of expertise, and they would have to do that for you to even understand half of what they are saying. Add to that there are aspects of how the program works that are private.

It did? I used v6 from the first day it came out without any problems whatsoever. I also have not experienced any serious problems with v7, only a few small glitches that don’t really impact much since they can be easily worked around until fixed without affecting the protection offered by the program.

Gargamel360 I see you are still useing 6.0.1367 why not 7.0.1407 ?

I’m not certain of the point of this question (but I do have an idea) as you have already asked this and have already been answered in another topic.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=94082.msg752820#msg752820