Disabling Avast to install Software Question

[Alyssandra]

I am a gamer and there have been lots of stories recently about folks being hacked due to keyloggers getting on their systems. Although I run behind a linksys router as a hardware firewall and have Windows 7 and Avast I thought that it might not be a bad idea to use one of the recommended programs to make sure no keyloggers are hanging out. I downloaded Combofix. When it started up it asked me to turn off Avast while it runs as my computer might be damaged by running it with Avast up. I can't find anything in Avast that allows me to disable it temporarily. Can you help?

[DavidR]

You can right click on the avast tray icon, avast! Shields control, Disable for X time, the avast self-defence module will ask if you want to continue, answer Yes. See image, click to expand.

Whilst I would suggest as short a period of time as possible, there is no estimate of how long combofix will take. So you might want to go for 1 hour or until the computer is restarted (combofix could well require a reboot). The main thing to remember is to either restart avast shields or reboot to ensure they are started again so you aren't unprotected.