[RESOLVED] Dreadful mess going from Avast 4.8 to 5.096

[foxy]

Now I have a godawful mess. I tried to install 5.096, and it froze. Rebooted, tried twice more, finally installed it and it refused to start. Hit all the "start this shield" buttons.

Uninstalled 5 with Revo Uninstaller, reinstalled 4.8, but it won't work now. And there's no entry in Revo or the Control Panel for uninstall.

Usually I clean up such a mess manually. Opened Registry Workshop, a great improvement over Regedit, reg keys refuse to delete. Avast4.8 files won't delete from Program Files either. I guess they're protected.

Just activated the A-V in my Comodo-Free Suite, as i had only the Firewall and Defense before. But I hate Comodo and was planning to chuck it very soon. Has about 35 interfaces. Sigh.

Avast isn't running in the background, but I do have almost the entire program folder and about 200 reg keys left over.

My resources: I have both a clone and an image of my C drive from a month ago, when my C-format and reinstall was pristine. I also have complete registry backups from the entire week. ERUNT runs daily at startup. Data is never an issue, as it's backed up onto another computer.

What do you think is my best course now, or rather the one in which I might tear out the least amount of hair?

[fink]

Try using the Avast uninstall utility..

http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility

FWIW.. I also had similar issues trying to install ver 5. I had an hours old disc image
so going back to 4.8 was simple with no data loss or more hair pulling. I'll wait another while
before trying to install 5 again.

[foxy]

Thanks, fink. I'm in another thread here called "Avast 5 Released," and the problem is common. I just used the utility, then still removed about 200 registry entries manually. There are a few keys left containing the word "LEGACY," but I think it's pretty clean.

I don't think waiting and then reinstalling 5 will solve anything, unless they come out with a fix very soon. And I don't like having both my firewall and A-V in Comodo together, besides Comodo's GUI problems. I always found it simpler to have them separate.

Have had Avast about 6 months, and IMHO, there are too may problems.Honestly, I had had AVG-Free for maybe 10 years, and never had to post a problem anywhere. "Just set it and forget it." Every update went in smoothly. But it became so bloated.

How do you feel about the various free A-V's aside from Avast?

[fink]

Antivir is also highly rated and many of us here use it. It's pretty light on resources.

www.antivir.com

Microsoft Security Essentials is also gaining a lot of support.

[foxy]

I've had it. It sent up nag screens with each update.

[Train]

I accept that nag as it tells me it was updated.

[Broni]

Avira's nag screen can be disabled: http://www.smartestcomputing.us.com/...howtopic=38072

[HAN]

I'm sorry to see that Avast 5 hasn't worked out. There are 2 Avast uninstallers, one for version 4 and one for 5. Don't know which fink listed for you.

I have installed Avast 5 on four PCs so far. Only one has had issues (freeze-ups.) The others are doing great. I'm convinced they will sort out the issues but at this point, it won't run on everything...

[foxy]

I accept that nag as it tells me it was updated.

The nag I had kept telling me to upgrade to the paid version, almost full screen. I accept the update nag as necessary, anyway it was only in the corner.

[foxy]

Avira's nag screen can be disabled: http://www.smartestcomputing.us.com/...howtopic=38072

You're priceless, Broni!!

Anyone who's had bad luck with it and have the time, can you back me up at avast.com? My post:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=55061.0

I'm going back to Avira. You shouldn't have to think about your security software; it should just operate quietly in the background.

[foxy]

Avira's nag screen can be disabled: http://www.smartestcomputing.us.com/...howtopic=38072

Broni--Nag screens disabled, but now I'm getting Valentine's Day screens from them.

[Broni]

Hmmm....when does it pop up?

[foxy]

Not sure exactly, but maybe during update. Anyway, it's not really noodgy.

[HAN]

FYI on my freeze-ups... Several users over @ the Avast forums noticed that the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware real-time scanner (on the paid version) was causing freeze-ups for them. I have been running the MBAM scanner, so to see if that was my problem, I disabled the scanner. And lo and behold, the freezing seems to have stopped.

I won't say that is definitively the answer but so far, it is. I'll keep an eye out for any further issues and report back.

[foxy]

If so, just switch the the scan-on-demand free version.