Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Cleanup => Topic started by: newlands.taylor on December 18, 2019, 05:34:16 AM
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The day my cleanup premium expired, so did the functionality of Microsoft Office. I couldn't open any Excel or Word files, and if I went to open the Office program itself, it said it couldn't find any ".exe" files. Looking in my Program files I found that to be the case. Lots of files with ".DLL", but not one ".exe".
I reported this problem to Microsoft, and the answer came back to uninstall/reinstall. Before I saw the answer, your daily ad told me I had lots of junk to clean up. I first said no, because $49/year is way too much. Then you offered me the 60 day free trial, and I said OK. As soon as everything was loaded, I ran a scan. It found problems, which I said "fix". After a reboot, voila! Office worked. I browsed the program files, and found many '.exe" files there.
I've been with Avast more than 10 years, and had cleanup before. This is no way to treat a customer! Might I infer that when the 60 days run out, I'll lose Office again?
Between never being able to contact customer service, the almost impossibility of cancelling a free trial subscription, and now this - blowing out a program - you need to clean up your act.
Your customer for now, Jan T.
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The day my cleanup premium expired, so did the functionality of Microsoft Office. I couldn't open any Excel or Word files, and if I went to open the Office program itself, it said it couldn't find any ".exe" files. Looking in my Program files I found that to be the case. Lots of files with ".DLL", but not one ".exe".
I reported this problem to Microsoft, and the answer came back to uninstall/reinstall. Before I saw the answer, your daily ad told me I had lots of junk to clean up. I first said no, because $49/year is way too much. Then you offered me the 60 day free trial, and I said OK. As soon as everything was loaded, I ran a scan. It found problems, which I said "fix". After a reboot, voila! Office worked. I browsed the program files, and found many '.exe" files there.
I've been with Avast more than 10 years, and had cleanup before. This is no way to treat a customer! Might I infer that when the 60 days run out, I'll lose Office again?
Between never being able to contact customer service, the almost impossibility of cancelling a free trial subscription, and now this - blowing out a program - you need to clean up your act.
Your customer for now, Jan T.
Hi,
this seems like a bug as we definitely do not take any of your personal files as a "hostages" when your license expires and we do not even touch them during the cleaning process, especially not the .exe files from programs like Office, etc.
Unfortunately it is very hard to determine what happened on your PC without knowing more information so I would like to ask you to provide us with logs so we can check them and hopefully get a better picture.
You can simply send them by executing our log collector utility from this path C:\Program Files (x86)\AVAST Software\Avast Cleanup\tulogcollector.exe assuming that you have still Avast Cleanup installed on your computer.
Just please add your email address there so we can join the logs with your report here.
Thank you.
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It happened to me EXACTLY THE SAME.
Now I just bought the renewal again, I hope that the email arrives and I wish with all my heart that my Office functionality will return.
I do not have so many years with the service, this will be the third but the truth is unfair that they treat it that way and do not take care of the users who use this tool with their eyes closed, trusting you.
I have been without an office since the beginning of January because of the renovation.
It is a very big impotence.
Edit Message
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I have the same problem, my subscription expired and now I can't open any of the programs that Cleanup "put to sleep". This includes all of MS Office, Adobe Reader and others apps.
Really not impressed.
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Oh, and I can't even open Cleanup as it comes up with an error and says contact support, which I really can't be bothered doing as Avast are not known for their support department.
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The MSOffice fix for me:
Win + R to open run dialog
Enter "services.msc" and run
Find "Microsoft Office ClickToRun Service"
Right click it, select properties, set to start Automatic.
Click OK
Right click again and select Start
Should work now.
Same process to fix Avast Cleanup not starting. https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/84/
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My trial hasn't expired yet but after, either the "Cleanup" or a "Disk Scan", I LOST access to ALL my encrypted files!!!! I have files (for security) over three different pairs of synced drives, internal drives of 8Tb.
I tried a few things to get my access back without success so I restored a System Image and I'm good again....
I also felt that the program was "Unfinished" as I encountered a couple of other "problems" like scans looping or "hung"....
I feel your pain. And "free" trials only having access to the forum to report problems does not help....
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My trial hasn't expired yet but after, either the "Cleanup" or a "Disk Scan", I LOST access to ALL my encrypted files!!!! I have files (for security) over three different pairs of synced drives, internal drives of 8Tb.
I tried a few things to get my access back without success so I restored a System Image and I'm good again....
I also felt that the program was "Unfinished" as I encountered a couple of other "problems" like scans looping or "hung"....
I feel your pain. And "free" trials only having access to the forum to report problems does not help....
Hi,
I apologize for your troubles.
In order to be able to help you I would like to ask you to send the log files so we can investigate where the problem is.
You can simply send them by executing our log collector utility from this path C:\Program Files (x86)\AVAST Software\Avast Cleanup\tulogcollector.exe assuming that you have still Avast Cleanup installed on your computer.
Just please add your email address there so we can join the logs with your report here.
Thank you.
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Hi Stellarman
Im have not the software (Avast Cleanup) but to bring some light, and seeing than is an function to suspend or sleep apps, to do it, I guess your software use the IFEO keys at registry to intercept the executables (that way used AVG PC Tuneup, and as Avast bought AVG, maybe taken same function at same way)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
Could be than Avast Cleanup, after license expire or uninstall, fail to (or not do at all) remove the keys it create under IFEO?
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Hi Stellarman
Im have not the software (Avast Cleanup) but to bring some light, and seeing than is an function to suspend or sleep apps, to do it, I guess your software use the IFEO keys at registry to intercept the executables (that way used AVG PC Tuneup, and as Avast bought AVG, maybe taken same function at same way)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
Could be than Avast Cleanup, after license expire or uninstall, fail to (or not do at all) remove the keys it create under IFEO?
Hi,
you're right, although it is definitely not the intended behavior it might occur in unknown circumstances that the uninstallation is not able to revert the registries back to the original state. The same thing might happen when Cleanup expires.
If you check my post here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=233129.msg1541192#msg1541192 (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=233129.msg1541192#msg1541192) you should have a better idea how to troubleshoot it when something goes wrong.
Thank you.
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This happened to me too, just yesterday: 05/27/2020. I am beyond. I am livid. I uninstalled Avast Premium Trial because it was eating up my CPU and causing basic functionality to cease working. I uninstalled, rebooted and the first thing I noticed was that my Outlook wasn't working and I thought perhaps that had something to do with Avast email protection. But no, it is the entire Office Suite, gone. While using the full Premium version I performed the major functions it offers: cleaning registry keys, a full scan, etc. No viruses were found and my computer seemed clean. The program simply ate up my CPU on my old WIndows 7 computer so I had to uninstall it and go back to the free version.
The CPU was grinding away so hard that I thought it might spin off into space so I made a backup and have that, thankfully. THis computer is so old that I don't want to make changes. I don't have the original Windows disks, let alone the Office disks or even the Startup Disk. I am fit to be tied. Why???
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Hi Stellarman
Im have not the software (Avast Cleanup) but to bring some light, and seeing than is an function to suspend or sleep apps, to do it, I guess your software use the IFEO keys at registry to intercept the executables (that way used AVG PC Tuneup, and as Avast bought AVG, maybe taken same function at same way)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
Could be than Avast Cleanup, after license expire or uninstall, fail to (or not do at all) remove the keys it create under IFEO?
Hi Stellarman, I used your advice and was able to clean up the registry keys by deleting the debugger entries (I went ahead and did it for all .exe's in the Image File Execution Options path. My Microsoft Office programs came right back up. THANK YOU! ;D I was almost going to panic but I held off. ;D
Hi,
you're right, although it is definitely not the intended behavior it might occur in unknown circumstances that the uninstallation is not able to revert the registries back to the original state. The same thing might happen when Cleanup expires.
If you check my post here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=233129.msg1541192#msg1541192 (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=233129.msg1541192#msg1541192) you should have a better idea how to troubleshoot it when something goes wrong.
Thank you.