XP Security Central stopped recognizing avast!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello,

I don’t post much here (probably cause avast! runs so smoothly ;D)…

But my XPPro SP2 started behaving strangely. It used to detect avast! correctly (even warned me it needed update when I travelled once!).

But, since yesterday, it started to warn me that I might not have an antivirus installed.

  1. I manually asked avast! to update itself, but it was already up-to-date.
  2. So, I uninstalled it (avast!) and installed it again.
  3. I checked and avast! is updated and running normally, nevertheless, Security Central keeps saying I don’t have an antivirus installed.

I’ve already read that it happened before, the workaroung was to uninstall and reinstall avast! (hence step 2 above). But I couldn’t fix it.

Is any of you experiencing this? What can I do?

Regards,
Jose Luis Carneiro

2

Check the Task Manager for running avast! (begin with ash or asw) processes, you should have:

Absolutely essential.
ashServ.exe - the most important one this actually does the scanning. - if this isn’t running the security centre would throw up the message I believe.
ashDisp.exe - the avast icon you see on the system tray and GUI interface.

Even if these aren’t running the security centre shouldn’t complain.
ashMaiSv.exe - if you are using Internet mail provider.
ashWebSv.exe - web shield if you use it.
aswUpdSv.exe - avast update.

3

All those you mentioned are running (showing on the Task Manager).

What else?

4

Try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, avast! Anti-Virus, Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. You need to be on-line to do this.
If that doesn’t work try, uninstall, reboot, install, reboot.

If one or other of those don’t do it, I can only guess that it is something to do with windows security centre (WSC). Check out this link and see if there is anything in there that throws any light on the problem - Frequently asked questions about Windows Security Center - You can always switch of the WSC anti-virus check if you are sure that it is working correctly.

5

DavidR,

Let’s make a checklist:

Done.

Done.

Done. ;D

I’ll check the link you gave me, though. Any more sugestions?

Thank you very much for your attention.

6

Here it’s working perfectly…
Can you update your Windows without problem? Do you apply all updates?

7

My XP started acting the same way after a recent MicroSoft update.
I just turned off the notification from the Security service for anti-virus
protection. I think that the program only recognizes a few brands…?..
Who needs XP telling you that you don’t have anti-virus protection when
you know that you do? Microsoft bug.

8

I’m not saying that the problem is exactly this, but recent Windows Genuine Advantage update could be blocking the non-genuine Windows copies of normal behavior. I haven’t read anything yet but who knows…

9

Same here. :frowning:

10

What yesterday’s update(s) are you talking about, exactly?
The August MS Security patches are yet to be released (tomorrow I think)