Upgrade to Avast Internet Security wiped my Homegroup !!

General Topics
1

Good day everybody,

I was a happy licensed user of Avast Pro with a small but useful Homegroup with my wife’s Laptop. Until I accepted the upgrade to Avast Internet Security offered as a routine way of updating the program.

To my surprise the laptops ceased to see each other in the local network and hence the Homegroup didn’t work anymore.

At first I thought that this was done by a hacker disguise as Avast that made me swallow a poison that annihilated my laptops. But further visit to Avast made me know that really was a “innocent” upgrade of the program, maybe not realizing the consequences to the users.

Both laptops have Windows 7 (Home Premium service Pack 1) and now both have Avast Internet Security.

We have a wireless router Linksys WRT160N v2 that continue to give us access to the Internet without further restrictions.

This is something new, so I suspect that it will arise many inquires once customers upgrade the program.

So, any idea of how can I solve this problem. Obviously we like to share information through the local area network, and we really miss it.

I have tried pinging (no answer to address or not found to names).

I will appreciate if someone lead me to a solution.

2

In your Avast interface,settings troubleshooting do you have ignore local communication on or off ?

3

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/screenshots/u/Lh/1382553212160-42703.png

4

Hello,
Thanks for your replies.

I didn’t change any of that options.
I saw it now to see what is their situation and in both laptop the WEB is set to ignore local communication and the MAIL is not set to ignore local communication.
Maybe is a reason why the updater program left it that way.

Anyway I unset it in both just to try and (you guess right) nothing did change. They are still ignoring each other. They don’t even listen/respond the pings.

Something else is blocking the local area. Sorry. :frowning:

5

Depending on what you are using for a firewall,try authenticate communication between computors in firewall settings

6

Thanks marc-d-l,

The only firewall active is Avast Internet Security, when I look at Windows firewall it tells me that all functions have been transferred to Avast.

I am sure that the problem is in the firewall, but since is a new program I don’t understand it yet. And unfortunately it is not that friendly in explanations or help. That’s why I expect that people in the knowledge of Avast 2014 can guide me.
???

7

Here is a place to download all the instructions (http://files.avast.com/files/documentation/quick-start-guide-v7-is-eng.pdf) You can read at you leisure,but I think it may be the firewall settings for home or public network.

8

I appreciate very much your effort.

I am going to read that PDF because for sure I need to understand the concepts behind the firewall.

However, my Avast is not that version so is useless trying to find my way using that guide.
My version of Avast is the one I am showing you now:

(Notice the different menu in the side bar)

9

Still without Homegroup. Now after checking the rules I am able to see the name of the laptop in Network (in Windows explorer), but cannot access it.

Will there be any solution other than uninstall Avast?

10

I am EXTREMELY disappointed with the response from Avast as regards the homegroup problem. I should NOT have to go thru multiple gyrations to attempt to get it working. I teach a computer course at night school and will NOT be recommending this product. Our in-house homegroup has been out of service for weeks. So, we will uninstall, not renew out subscription and find another product to use. A real shame!!

11

I replied to your first post a while ago mentioning that you need to update to 9.0.2007 which should have fixed your problem, since then there has been another release so updating to the latest 9.0.2008 http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=139606.0 would be advisable.