Windows 10 can't update to 1903 due to "ghost(?)" install of Avast

[Amgeek]

Windows 10 update to 1903 (from 1803) still seeing old version of long removed avast and wont install.

Have ran your uninstall utility but Windows still says I have an incompatible version of Avast installed.

[DavidR]

Where (or does it) say it is.

There have been a couple of instances where win10 has found it in the windows.old file/folder created by a previous windows update. This is meant to be removed automatically by the OS after 30 days.

Have you got the windows.old file/folder ?

[Amgeek]

No.

[bob3160]

If you’re running avastclear.exe as the screenshot shows,
Finish running it by selecting yes to allow windows to go into safe mode and finish uninstalling Avast.

[Amgeek]

Done that twice, so far. Will try again.

[lukor]

Hello Amgeek,
it might possibly be an issue with the Windows Updater – looking for an old version of Avast anywhere on the disk (no matter if it is installed and/or running). Could you do a search for “avastui.exe” on your whole disk and when found delete that folder (provided that you really don’t have Avast installed – in such case updating to a newer version is the preferred way of fixing it – and by “newer” I mean anything that was released in 2019.

Or you can follow this guide from reddit to find out exactly where Windows Update had located the older version:

@ps010101

23 days ago
If updating to the newest version, repairing the installation via Add/Remove program or running avastclear.exe from https://www.avast.com/en-us/uninstall-utility didn't help and you still see incompatibility dialog, you can use following generic approach (it's a little bit geeky, use it only if you know what you are doing):

when incompatibility dialog appears, check the folder %SystemDrive%\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Panther for file[s] that has a name than ends with *_APPRAISER_HumanReadable.xml

open one of these files in notepad. Do not use default app, which is typically a IE/Edge and it takes forever to open it.

search for Property Name="BlockUpgrade" Value="TRUE" . There might be more occurrences of that. These sections contain information of what program might block Windows Update. Look specifically for path to this file (Property Name="LowerCaseLongPathUnexpanded) and either uninstall the program (preferred way) or delete the file, if possible.

Alternatively - if you get the message about Avast, search for Avast in this file. Look specifically for the path to the file (Property Name="LowerCaseLongPath"), it should contain the file in question. Delete the file.

Last, but not least:

If you can't delete the file, reboot to Safe Mode and delete the file in safe mode

Does it help?

[Amgeek]

Thanks, that did it.

The “Geeky” way worked. Over 40,00 lines in that log. Opened in Notepad++ and searched for “BlockUpgrade” Value=“TRUE”
found it straight away. Old backup of some type from 2012 buried a couple of folders in on C: drive.

Thanks again

Amgeek

[rlweiner]

I had the same problem. I used the geeky approach and found the locations of an ancient version of Avast (v5) plus a backup copy of another version that I’d made when troubleshooting a problem with Avast. Deleting those folders fixed the problem. I didn’t have to uninstall the current version.

– Robert