Tray Icon Missing - problem or OK?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I noticed recently that the combined avast! tray icon no longer appears in my Windows XP Home. (And, no, it is NOT being hidden in the tray by Windows.) I think I may have mistakenly deleted a start-up item and that is why it is no longer appearing? I also noticed that I’m no longer being notified when my virus database is updated or when there’s a virus in an email. However, my databases seem to be being updated even without notification and even though I’m not being warned of viruses in my email, the program still seems to be detecting them.

I have a couple of questions:

  1. Is the tray icon simply a function that triggers notification of things such as virus updates and viruses or does it do something else? In other words, is it purely cosmetic and something that simply eats up valuable system resources? If it’s purely a cosmetic thing, I’m assuming it’s best to not have it running at all - but I want to make sure I’m not leaving myself unprotected.

  2. If it is something other than cosmetic, what do I need to do to get it running again? I tried a repair and an update but it did nothing. Is there a start-up item I can create or do I need to add a registry entry?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dave

2

I suggest you reinstal Avast to make sure everything is in place.

3

I suggest you go to www.security-ops.tk and use the standard EICAR test file (EAICAR.com). If avast! warns you its working and you’re missing only a tray icon. Download my External tweaker(download on upper page or in my signature) and use avast! Tweaker feature where you can enable/disable tray icon.

4

Thanks for the response.

I did reinstall the program and it gave me the option to “change” or “uninstall”. I chose the “change” option and it said that all was successful. After doing the “change” routine, the icon still doesn’t appear in my tray. Do you think I should try uninstalling and then reinstalling or should I just assume that all is well.

Dave

5

Try as RejZoR suggested and use his util. See if that solves it. If that fails get the Avast uninstall util to remove Avast, reboot and reinstall.
http://www.avast.com/eng/download/programs/avast_uninstall_util.html

You may also want to have a look at this util:
Click here

6

Thank-you for all your excellent responses. Here’s what I’ve figured out. (I’m NOT a techie.)

  • I uninstalled and then reinstalled the software and the Tray Icon has reappeared.

  • there’s a start-up item called “ashDisp.exe” that I had deleted and it is the program that creates the on-screen display (OSD) including the Tray Icon. It seems that disabling this item does not affect the software’s ability to detect viruses in any way, shape or form. It seems that the only thing that happens is that you no longer get the OSD - i.e. Tray Icon, notification boxes of viruses being detected, database updates being processed…or the nice voice telling you the same. However, as an example, when a virus is inside an email message, even though you don’t get the OSD, the virus is stripped from the email and a message is inserted stating such - provided, of course, that you have the software settings set-up to do so.

  • I’m not a big fan of having unnecesarry processes running in the background chewing up valuable system resources. However, ashDisp.exe seems to use up only about 2MB of memory on my Windows XP machine so I’m likely just going to leave it running - even though it appears to be unnecessary. (I get a kick out of the little voice saying “Your virus database has been update” and you don’t get that when you turn-off ashDisp.exe!!!)

  • I also really appreciate the avast! External Control program. Thank-you so much for providing it and letting me know about it

Dave

7

WinXP SP2 Security Center now tells you if AV is disabled or its rey is only missing. Very cool stuff :slight_smile:
I’m glad you solved the problem :slight_smile:

8

Dave, there were some other ways - not so radical - to do that… You can disable avast sounds into Sounds & Multimidia applet of Control Panel or even into avast Settings…