Will boot scan ever work with USB keyboard?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Will the boot time scan ever work again with usb keyboards?

When I first installed avast months ago the initial boot time scan worked fine, but after that, I just get keyboard error when i schedule a boot time scan. I understand this is due to using a usb keyboard? although I was also using the same usb keyboard when the initial boot time scan after installation worked.

Thanks.

2

I’m not so confident… USB keyboards always bring trouble with on-boot applications because the drivers could not be loaded prior boot is finished… :cry:

3

Windows doesn’t have the USB drivers loaded yet. The only way to make this work would be to somehow convince your BIOS to load its own drivers and emulate a ‘normal’ keyboard (provided your BIOS supports it, of course).

The same applies to the Microsoft’s own boot-time scan CheckDisk program, doesn’t it?

4

No, microsoft’s own boot time scan/check disk works fine.
Avast even worked once when newly installed too, but not since.
The motherboard fully supports usb keyboards etc. as I understand it the standard motherboard drivers/support is used until the windows drivers ‘takes over’ as it were?

5
Avast even worked once when newly installed too, but not since

Do you remember when it was, exactly? We may have a look at the source tree history…

Thanks
Vlk

6

I’m not exactly sure, it was when I dowloaded and installed the full version initally, I’ve found 2 installers here:

one created 4th Jan 2004, modified 27 november 2003 (7,510,342 bytes)

and one created 6th Jan 2004, modified 5th jan 2004 (7,717,777 bytes)

Hope this is ok, doesn’t seem to be any version info on the files? I think it was the earlier one that worked once, but seem to remember clicking the check for updates after that and it stopped working.

Thanks.

7

Yep, I noticed the same on my machine.

This appears to be an issue after the latest Program Update (I don’t know exactly when it appaered but sure after one of them)

Newer Dell’s come even without the PS2 connectors, so it is to become a bigger issue for avast users in the near future.

Hope this can be investigated and fixed.

8

This thread is 2 years old, so hardly relevant.
There were no changes in the boot-time scanner recently that may affect the keyboard handling.

9

I have just tested it with one of the latest Dells (GX620) and it worked OK with the USB keyboard. Is USB support enabled in your BIOS?

Also, are you saying that it used to work previously, but doesn’t work anymore? This even adds to the hypothesis that it must be the BIOS - since keybard handling has definitely not changed during the last builds…

Thanks
Vlk

10

All the latest mobos have native USB support for mouse and keyboard. So they’ll work even before drivers are loaded (boot-time). At least basic functionality (no extra special buttons).

11

Thanks for the replies.

I actually see the same issue on an older HP e-pc. I.e. the boottime scan stopped working only recently after several avast program updates, but also after several windows security updates. There has to be USB keyboard support because the keyboard works on boot time for bios functionality and during windows boot. Oly avast boot time scan does not recognize the keyboard.

So it will either be a windows driver issue, or an avast issue. Maybe this is just a rare case occurrence after all. For now I just plug in a PS2 keyboard whenever I need to scan.

12

For those who do not have USB support at boot, there are adapters available so that you can plug your USB keyboard or mouse into a PS2 port. Check with TigerDirect or other such mass merchandisers of computer products.

13

Staley, please try this version with USB keyboard:
http://public.avast.com/~peterka/4.7.827/aswBoot.zip
(unzip the file and put both extracted files to your system folder - C:\WINDOWS\system32)
Thank you.

14

VojTech, why isn’t this small file included in avast package and the user can ‘turn it’ on while installing avast?

15

There is nothing that can be included in the avast package, aswBoot.exe is a slightly modified boot-time scanner and aswBoot.exe.sum is a file that proves authenticity of this patch.

16

Why not? There at least two different aswBoot.exe files that could be there in the package.
One for PS2/Serial(?) mouses and other for USB mouses… Am I wrong?

17

Tech, this is not a completely different version (I suppose) - it’s probably just a slightly updated version, and Vojtech would like to know if it improves the behavior in any way.

18

I see… So, all users will receive this version in a new program update I suppose… ok.

19

This is still an issue 6 months later. It is hard to sell a customer the product if by default they cannot use the keyboard in a boot time scan.

20

Yes it will and does work with USB keyboards.

avast can’t change your BIOS settings, the user can (you could advise how to check it), but more importantly, the system manufacturer can set the BIOS to recognise the USB keyboard that he packages with it.

This is clearly something avast has NO control over, even if they wanted it to work, they can’t change the BIOS to recognise hardware.