I like to keep my volume up pretty high, so I can hear the sound that tells me I have a new email message, from the other room, if I’m anticipating something. That sound doesn’t bother me even when I’m sitting right here.
HOWEVER, I about jump out of my skin when the Avast window announces that the virus data base has been updated. Does anyone know of a way to stop the announcement? I’m not that wild about how long the window stays up on my screen either. Sometimes it gets in the way and it stays there for a long time. The sound has upset me so much as times, that I’m sorely tempted to uninstall the whole program, but I hesitate to do that, because I do believe Avast is the best out there. This is a huge drawback to me, though.
Carol
If you mean the blue sliding box that tells you your virus database has been updated, that can be disabled: Right click the blue ‘a’ icon > Program Settings > Update (Basic) > Details… > un-tick “Show sliding box after automatic update.”
If you mean the update progress window, that can be disabled the same way–un-tick “Show update progress.”
Ther’is also another way to disable virus database update announcement:
Rightclick in blue icon, starts avast! Antivirus, click menu, settings, sounds, settings, in the sounds tab search Automativ VPS update and in the sound box set (None) :), this way will disable only automatic update notification sound
Here’s a way to actually retain the sound, but turn it down. Works on XP, I have realtec97 sound installed.Navigate to the folder the sound is in. (Normally C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\English (or French, or whatever your default language is), right click the sound file, and if you see “record” in the context menu, select it. A mini-media player will appear. Play it. Select “effect” then “decrease volume”. Repeat those two last steps until it is at the volume you want.
You can apply this to most system sounds, increasing or decreasing the volume, adding echo etc, as you want.
Hope y’all find that trick cool, only discovered it myself last night.
[EDIT] After setting the volume, you’ll be prompted to save the altered file. You may want to rename it, and add it to the location of the original, or just replace the original with the modified version. Up to you.
You can’t overwrite the original files in avast! folder.
(Or rather, you can, but avast! setup will notice the modification soon and overwrite them with the original version.)
Thanks everybody for great advice! I just eliminated the sound and the window.
It would have been nice to just turn the sound down, because it IS reassuring to hear that the database has been updated, but I couldn’t find a ‘sound’ file. The items listed under Program Files\AlwilSoftware\Avast4\English go from ready.wav to suspic.wav. I see no “sound” in there anywhere. I guess you you have it because of your realtec97?
I thought I could look to see that it was being updated, but in the program under “Last updated”, it doesn’t show dates, it shows things like this forum web address! This surprises me, because I thought it used to show dates.
Carol
Sound files are .wav files. (Or vice versa, there are a few other formats…mp3etc)
The one that plays the update sound (by default, it can be changed) is vpsupd.wav. Right click it and see if "Record " is an option. If not, no point in continuing. If so, and you’re up for it, right click it, select “copy”, navigate to C:\Windows\Media, right click in a blank area of the folder, select “paste”.
This copies the sound file to the Media folder, where all the system sounds are.
From the Avast icon, select “Program settings”, then “sounds” and click the settings tab. This opens the sounds configuration window. Click the “sounds” tab, scroll down to Avast antivirus, select the sound you want to change (Automatic VPS update) and browse for it, where you just copied it to. Once found, select (right click) “record” and then do what you want with it. Good luck.
There is no ‘record’ option, so I guess I’ll be satisfied the way things are.
But, I did find sound controls within the Avast program and lowered those levels and turned the announcement back on, so I’ll see how that works. I’d like to hear it as long as it’s not so loud.
I right-clicked on the Avast icon in my tray. Went into program settings. Then Sounds, then Settings, then the Audio tab, then Volume, and it brought up a window with a lot of control levers and I just moved all of them down to a medium range. I also went into the Volume tab and lowered that level.
Maybe I mistunderstood the whole thing, but we’ll see what happens the next time it updates.
Carol
If this is what you adjusted, it will adjust all the volumes used by the respective devices, not just Avast’s.
As you say, see how you go. (It’s Windows built in sound manager, not specific to the Avast program.
It looks the same, but why is it inside the Avast program, through the Avast icon?
By the way, the settings I adjusted to are very close to the ones in your example except my Balance lever is a little lower than yours, so I guess it won’t be too bad, even if it does adjust everything.
Carol
