POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Along with others I have been plagued by this problem for some time. I am currently running the latest versions of both programs.
The symptoms are that intermittently but frequently Windows begins to load then hangs, and the Outpost icon remains ‘inactive’. Right clicking on it gets a ‘service not started’ reply.
This is almost certainly a conflict between Outpost Firewall and Avast anti-virus, as uninstalling either cures the problem. As it is intermittent it is very difficult to work out what was happening, but after a lot of experimenting I MAY have found a solution.
The culprit appears to be ‘avastemupdate.exe’.
Users of Outpost will know that it will not allow any internet connection until it has fully started. ‘avastemupdate.exe’ is set to run at Windows startup, and if all is working OK, connects via the
Internet, does its stuff, then closes. However if Outpost has not fully started, and ‘avastemupdate.exe’ runs it will continue to try to connect to the Net, but cannot. This apparently causes a ‘loop’ which then stops any other startup programs executing fully, including Outpost, and eventually causes Windows to lock up completely.
Using the free version of WinPatrol, I initially experimented with delaying the start of AVAST, but this did not cure the problem. I had time to start Windows Task Manager and saw that despite the main AVAST program not running immediately, ‘avastemupdate.exe’ still was, and remained ‘running’ right up to the time Windows froze. The file was not shown in any startup folder, but again WinPatrol came to my assistance. It was being run as a ‘scheduled task’, but was not shown as a task in Windows, however it was shown as a scheduled task item by WinPatrol, which also allowed me to delete it from the list, which I did.
The file ‘avastemupdate.exe’ is situated in the Avast folder in Program Files.
I added the ‘avastemupdate.exe’ file to WinPatrol’s delayed options startup list. To be certain I also transferred the Startup entry for Avast from the startup list in WinPatrol. (You will get a warning saying AVAST is trying to re-instate itself into the standard startup sequence, but WinPatrol can cope with this by setting that new entry to disabled. The delayed start of the file is not affected, and it will run.)
I had to decide on the length of the ‘delay’ for the new delayed start entry I added for ‘avastemupdate.exe’, and the Avast program itself. Initially I set ‘avastemupdate.exe’ to be delayed by 3 minutes, and the Avast program by 3 mins 30 seconds, so I had time to monitor what was happening in Windows Task Manager.
After numerous re-boots over several days, on no occasion did Windows hang. Eventually, the Outpost firewall icon turned to blue indication it was operating, and then after the delay ‘avastemupdate.exe’ executed, and closed itself, followed by AVAST activating. Because Outpost was running ‘avastemupdate.exe’ could connect to the Net, execute and not cause the offending ‘loop’.
All that is now needed is to decide on the final values for the delayed startup. This will vary on individual computers. The solution is to see how long it takes for your Outpost icon to turn blue, then choose your delays accordingly. Personally I would add 10 seconds to the delay for ‘avastemupdate.exe’ , and 15 seconds to the start of AVAST initally (that is adding those seconds to the time you find it takes Outpost to run completely).
NOTES
Anyone aggrieved at the thought of delaying the Windows boot up time should consider that if this problem exists, one may have to re-boot the PC several times before it loads completely. Personally I prefer an extra few seconds and Windows booting first time.
I have seen other posts about possible cures where comments were made indicating that delaying AVAST opens up the computer to possible attacks. This is not really relevant in this case because if Outpost has not fully started there are not Internet connections possible in either direction, and in any case it is always unwise to download anything until both Outpost and AVAST indicate they are working. This solution ensures Outpost is functioning as usual, and AVAST runs just a few seconds later.
Although the above explanation is long, actually doing the ‘fix’ takes very little time. All you need is WinPatrol (free), and being free of the Windows freezing problem is great.
