Hi everyone! I just started using Avast (I previously used AVG, but I wanted to give this one a try).
I was wondering about something, though. I have lots of software, such as games, and I tend to regularly install new stuff. Now, it is often advised to disable the AV software when installing software.
So how do I go about this with Avast? Is there a recommended procedure for this?
Leave it running and ignore the comment to disable your AV software, there really shouldn’t be anything that they would be doing that should cause an AV to alert. You would have to ask what they are doing that they don’t want your AV to monitor.
I generally never disable my AV to install software and it hasn’t caused any issues. I don’t have that much trust to disable it on a companies say so, especially when there is no supporting reason why.
Hi Amon :
If you regularly uninstall, as well as install, software
you should consider the use of a "registry cleaner" .
There's a "safe" one called Tweaknow available at
www.tweaknow.com/RegCleaner.html .
Never do that: you don’t need to do that, you don’t have to do that, you should not do that 8)
Thanks to everyone who replied to my question! Greatly appreciated! So I should not ever have to turn off Avast?
OK. Well, how about, say, CD/DVD burning software? I am using Nero 7 Premium, primarily for making backups of my data.
No, not exactly. Your original question was whether to turn it off while installing new software. You should leave it running for that.
But there might be times when you want to free as much resources as possible (eg for video editing) and you could turn it off for that. Just make sure you’re using a trusted program and you’re not on-line if you do this. Also make sure to turn it back on afterwards.
Me too. I’ve never had any conflicts with avast! and Nero.
BTW, Nero has a built in AV scanner to keep your disks malware free, but you need to manually update.
I also use Nero 6 (not very frequently) and I haven’t disabled the AV to burn CDs mainly because the data content isn’t large, so even if avast were to scan content at any point the overhead wouldn’t be great. However if you were burning a large CD/DVD perhaps it would be best to do a through scan with archives on the source prior to burning it and pause standard shield for the burn.
It is important to be sure that what you have burned on to CD/DVD is clean, so you would have two options, pre-scan, pausing avast before the burn Or leave avast enabled.
Hi Amon666,
Scan that hyperlink before clicking to download this plug-in for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=938
or for MIE: http://www.drweb.com/online/drweb-online-ru.reg
Search through http://www.scandoo.com or install McAfee SiteAdvisor, and you have no more excuse to install malware without knowingly doing it.
polonus
Again, thanks to all of you for helping me out here, I appreciate it! Feeling a bit down ATM - the lastest update of DivX seems to have scr*wed up my system - which I only reinstalled about a month ago. 
I have been getting DEP error messages for a few days now. First it was Windows Explorer, and then I found my image viewing software wouldn’t work anymore!
PC’s. They’re a love-and-hate affair.
Spiritsongs: I have been using Registry Mechanic for a short while now. Having run Tweaknow once, I found more errors than RM ever did. Is there a “best of the bunch”?
Just wanted to add my new experience:
Try to install Ewido 4.0 while Avast is running.
So I turned Avast off when installing. After install of Ewido, I TRIED to start Avast again. A total hang-up. I had to pull out the power-cord from my PC to get further.
Well, it all ended well.
I ghosted back, disabled Avast, Installed Ewido, disabled Ewidos resident shield both by disabling it in user-interface and disabling the process guard.exe.
Then I turned Avast back on, and eweything works fine.
I never intended to use Ewido resident at all, but it is activated in the download for 30 days.
Ewido on demand works fine, and the story ended well: Ewido found nothing. (that Avast had missed.)
Just my experience to share with you guys.
Disabling AV software while installing is the most stupid thing ever advised.
Why the hell is this required? To avoid conflicts? Give me a break.
I’ve never disabled any software while installing and i never had any problems with this. And trust me i install and remove loads of software daily. So just keep it enabled. Only real drawback is a bit longer installation (by few seconds, nothing to brag about) because AV needs to scan all installed files.
RejZoR:
I am not advising to disable Avast while installing anything.
I have used Ewido 3.5. as on-demand for a long time, and I wanted to step to 4.0 as an on-demand tool besides Avast on-demand/on-access.
As far as I can tell there is a compatibility issue between Ewido’s guard and Avast.
I want to keep Avast, but I would like to use Ewido on-demand, too.
Perhaps the problem is on my side, has anybody else tried what I descibed in my first post?
@RejZoR: Have you tried it?
Edit: IMO the problem here is Ewido, but as I said, the problem is solved here.
Just wanted to share my experience.
Neither 3.5 nor 4 have issues with avast…
I’ve never heard about this…
Go ahead, no trouble 8)
Hlecter, seems that other program is conflicting with ewido, not avast… can you post a list of the ‘suspicious’ ones?
Installed Ewido 4 with Avast running - no problems with either programme
I don’t have any resident programs to suspect. Well I use ZA free.
But the incident happened just when I reactivated Avast resident shield after restart after Ewido 4.0 installation. Just when pressing Start on resident shield.
Pressing start on Webshield, which I did first, went well.
I thought this an incident. Th PC was completely locked, had to unplug it.
I repeated the same procedure after ghosting back one day, and the same thing happened at the same point.
Therefore I suspected Ewido Guard and Avast incompatible.
But I obviously was wrong from what you say.
But my intention was not to use the Ewido-guard at all so everything works fine now.
Not much more to add to it…
Ewido on-demand runs just fine for me with Avast. Which is what I wanted.
Do you have Evido guard running?
Have you tried stopping/starting Standard shield of Avast while Ewido gurd is running?
Just curious.
NO I turn the guard and autoupdate off, as I use it as a backup scanner
Edit:
Just saw the thread about Ewido 4 in general forum.
Must be something here that can’t be explained!
Never mind. On-demand with Ewido is working as it should here, too.
Thanks.
HLector, I also have been running Ewido 3.5 as an on-demand scanner for some time. Just uninstalled it yesterday via Add/Remove and deleted all files/folders it left behind on hdd & registry I could find. Then installed Ewido 4.0 leaving defaults & realtime/guard alone. This was all done without turning off Avast or anything else. Absolutely no problems here. I didn’t even turn off WinDefender, SpywareBlaster or SpywareGuard. Maybe manually deleting Ewido file/registry orphans made the difference for me. I had read on WildersSecurityForum (official Ewido forum) those 3.5 leftovers can cause problems when upgrading to 4.0.
Hi buttoni:
It looks like what I did wrong was to disable Avast during the install of Ewido 4.0. ;D
My rationale for doing this is that it wouldn’t hurt, and I thought I had read something about Ewido’s guard not wanting to be ‘disturbed’ during installation.
Just to be on the ‘safe’ side I turned Avast off because I knew that the guard would be installed either I wanted it or not.
But a boot and turning Avast back on was a real blackout for my machine.
It had been interesting to repeat the whole process with Avast on, to get confirmed that something on my machine doesn’t like Ewidos guard.
The strange thing is that this happened twice, and just when activating Avast’ Standard shield :-\ both times.
Eweything is fine now and works as wanted.
Thanks for your interest.