Why is avast! asking for a Reboot Daily ?

[bob3160]

This seems to have occured sinc the update to the latest version. Evety time avast updates,
it's asking to reboot.  (vps update) 

[DavidR]

It may be a remnant of the last program update.

- First check the contents of the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\setup.log file, which should show you why it thinks the reboot is needed.

This could be solved, in some systems, by deleting the file C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\reboot.txt

[bob3160]

Thanks David. I've removed the Reboot.txt file 

[Erroneus]

There is a BUG in the latest Avast, so systems which has the 8.3 tweak installed, will get the reboots dialogs

For some weird reason Avast dont want to fix this bug, stating it will require a reboot with all their users. Which is correct, but ignoring the thousands of users right now, who are getting reboot popups constantly, is just not an option and Avast needs to fix the bugs they have introduced in to their products.

Anyway disable the 8.3 tweak: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28102.msg229764#msg229764

[DARKLORDSPARDA]

Hi Erroneus ,

I would have to agree I have the very problem as mentioned above  . I have been using Avast since 2005 and been mostly happy with how it performs I may have to reconsider it's use and move over to a different product as this not satisfactory all for any users affected they should send over a update fix for this  .

[DavidR]

I don't know why it has an effect on those who have applied the 8.3 tweak, because earlier updates with those that had the same 8.3 tweak applied didn't have this problem.

I don't know what has changed, but what I do know the amount of people who have applied this 8.3 tweak is going to be infinitesimal by comparison the the 10s of millions of avast users and those that don't have this 8.3 tweak applied. So I can understand where they are coming from when they say they suggest reversing the tweak and even give the .reg to make it easier.

I have never felt it necessary to apply this tweak to stop the conversion to 8.3 short name conversion. There might have been a performance issue when this tweak was first thought of but I doubt that now as many have reported there either appears to be no noticeable impact on performance or none at all. I would tend to believe Igor's comment in this post http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28102.msg230206#msg230206 about the Short File Name generation (not its minimal impact). When the impact on the tens of millions not having any problems effectively being forced into another program update IMHO is much greater. These kind of decisions are taken all the time by all program developers (it is called change control, the impact of your changes Vs the impact of not making an immediate change) MS is a good/bad example. It is just that you don't see them being open an honest and up front about it.

Would abandon avast over this if I had previously applied the tweak, absolutely not, I would apply the .reg reversal on the advice of people who are working at this sort of system level application programming that there really is no performance impact.

Not when you consider the activity of the application programmers in these forums directly responding to problems I have never seen this kind of input by the software developers/programmers. However, it is your system and your choice but you should consider your own personal experience and the support levels with avast.

[Erroneus]

Avast should be able to push out an silent update, which fixes this problem, only for those running this "tweak".

[bob3160]

Removing the reboot text didn't help!
As you can see, I'm up-to date:


If I now do a manual program update:


avast! should just tell me that my system is up-to-date but, it doesn't. I get the following:


when this completes, I get the following which only confirms the same information in the first picture:


Once I close this, I then am greeted with the following:


It's asking me to reboot for a program update that was never updated.......... 

[DARKLORDSPARDA]

bob3160 ,

I understand where your coming from this bug is not acceptable and should be sorted but they wont until they send out another program update which may not be for sometime so this leave me little alternative than to review my security arrangements .

[calcu007]

Had you tried a repair?

[Erroneus]

bob did you try to disable the 8.3 tweak?

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28102.msg229764#msg229764

[DavidR]

@ Bob
Have you at some point in the past applied this 8.3 short file name conversion tweak ?

If so apply the reversal:

Did you disable creating of short file names (8+3) by some tool?

Download this registry fix and run it to enable short file names again:
http://public.avast.com/~forejt/Enable8dot3Name.reg

Then start program update and restart afterwards.

If not step two:
You can also check this registry entry (right after computer restart):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager, if it contains "PendingFileRenameOpertaions".

Check its contents and if there's only "reboot.txt" from avast4\setup folder, delete PendingFileRenameOperations, don't delete any other key.
Back-up (export) the registry key before you edit/delete, just in case.

[=YLAP=]

Just tried to update program... Everything seems to be fine 

[bob3160]

bob3160 ,

I understand where your coming from this bug is not acceptable and should be sorted but they wont until they send out another program update which may not be for sometime so this leave me little alternative than to review my security arrangements .

Running away from a problem doesn't solve it. I've been using avast! for many years and don't intend to leave over a little hick-up.....

I just applied the patch and after a reboot,  tried another program update.
I still get the same results as outlined in my post. avast! still asks to reboot.   

Obviously the registry patch wasn't the answer.

Any other suggestions from Alwil would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[DavidR]

Anything in that registry key I posted ?