Help, I am w/o protection…I cannot uninstall Avast.
I just received this laptop with it installed. I didn’t know anything about Avast so I uninstalled it considering that I just purchased Norton. Anyhow, the uninstall worked and the install worked for Norton. But I caused a problem with something else and had done a system restore. So I went to uninstall the Avast again to install Norton, then I received the “error code 2”. I came here and found the aswclear.exe. But when I followed those instructions, it still did not work. How can I get rid of this software so I can install Norton?
Thanks for the info on uninstalling in safe mode. But I still get a message (it doesn’t work) even after downloading aswclear.exe.
Message: The avast! self protection module is enabled. For this reason, the operation cannot be completed. To complete the operation, either run this program from windows safe mode (which I did), or disable the avast! self protection.
By the way, I was thinking about uninstalling to reinstall and just use. I have been talking with someone who says the same thing.
Not sure if this will work but you might try right clicking on the Avast icon in the system tray and pull up the setup options (can’t remember exact name as do not have it on my computer at my employer) and then go to troubleshooting and check the box that says disable self defense module. Then reboot into Safe Mode and try the uninstall exe program from Avast.
In terms of helping you better understand how the various AV software stack up against each other, you might check out the tests results at these two sites. I think you’ll find that Avast is near the top of the class for AV software. While Norton has apparently been getting better with making it lighter on system resources (at least in the 2009 edition), it still has a ways to go on pro-active detection.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (go to the left side and click “Comparatives” to find all the test results. You’ll see tests for “on-demand” scanning performance and then tests on pro-active (resident) scanning performance.
Are you sure you are in safe mode as avast doesn’t run in safe mode, so the self-defence module wouldn’t be operating.
So running aswclear from safe mode should work.
If you are considering sticking with avast, you obviously have a corrupt installation and the only way to really resolve that is by using ashclean.exe (from safe mode).
If you have in the process installed Norton ?
Then there could be more trouble ahead as that can be a pig to get rid of and with two resident AVs on board they can conflict, avast disables elements when it finds other AVs to try and avoid a conflict (I don’t know if this might not have something to do with the problem).
A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs: Removing your Norton program using SymNRT