Windows hanging after boot

Windows XP SP2
1G Ram, 3GHz processor
Windows Firewall
Spybot Search and Destroy
Avast 4.7

Hi all. A few days ago everything froze while dowloading emails (in Outlook). The curser turned into the hourglass, but it could still be moved around the screen. Avast mail scan was on at the time. Rebooted and again, while downloading emails the system froze. I thought it was possibly a virus, a problem with Outlook, or Avast. It has since started happening right after booting.

To make a long story short, I’ve determined that if I start up with msconfig Services for Avast turned OFF, everything runs fine. With the services on, the Desktop loads, Icons show up, taskbar starts to fill up and sometimes Avast’s blue ball with spin a few times… then the hourglass… and everything’s locked. I cannot Ctrl+Alt+Delete, etc.

I should say that I had a free Security suite from Yahoo/SBC (made by Computer Associates) before switching to Avast. I didn’t want to uninstall the suite because it has an anit-spy function… so I just turned off its virus scan capabilities. This was over six months ago and Avast has never had a problem with this configuration. I will remove it if you advise it, but I can’t see why it would suddenly be a problem. Avast is set to update automatically, so maybe a new version doesn’t like it.

Other troubleshooting on the way to finding the problem:
Removed (with uninstall tool) and re-installed Avast.
I’ve reinstalled Outlook/Office
Ran Ewido anti-spy - nothing found
Scanned in Safe Mode with Avast - nothing found

Thanks for any insight,
Curt

Any other antivirus installed? Even in the past?

Is avast plugin enabled into MS Outlook?
Outlook 2003 > Help > About > Disabled items
Outlook 2000 > Tools menu > Options > Other > Advanced Options > Add-In Manager.

Anything into avast logs or Windows Events to help you debugging this?

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, as I said I also have a Yahoo/SBC security suite installed. Anti-virus for it is disabled. Hasn’t caused a problem for 8 months. It has an anti-spy I like to use (the more the better with spyware detection, I’m told). I am willing to remove it if need be, but I know it won’t install again with Avast on the machine.

As far as the logs go, unfortunately I don’t know what’s useful (and probably couldn’t interperet them). I’ll check for the two logs you specifically mentioned. Should I post them?Thanks again.

Sooner or later… conflicts… the low level drivers, the legacy keys into Windows Registry and some other ‘hidden’ problems when we have two antivirus in a system…

If it can’t install with avast it seems to be incompatible with it… you, probably, manage this installing it before and just ‘disabling’ the antivirus protection…
Can you install Yahoo/SBC security suite without the antivirus module? I mean, not disable, but most NOT even install?

Well, you don’t have to interpret them… But if you post the last ‘errors’ on system logs we can guess what’s happening (if possible).

Right you are!

That was a lot easier than I thought. My logic that, “If it worked before, it should still work”, obviously didn’t… work.

Yahoo-SBC Protection was nice enough to come with an uninstaller, and you can actually pick a single component to remove (in my case, the virus protection).

Avast and Windows seem happy, and a nice twist is that the computer is much snappier now.

Thanks Tech for the guidance, much appreciated.

I suppose you’ve uninstalled the antivirus protection, repair your avast installation (through Control Panel) and everything is working now…
Hope I’m right ;D
Feel free to come back and ask for help if you need 8)