Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: SooperHOP on December 01, 2008, 03:40:43 AM
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on this machine i have vista 32bit sp1.
to be clear, I do not and never have run avast at start up. i only use the free home version for the occasional file scan. VERY OCCASIONAL!! maybe one file a month at most. i have never gotten a virus in over 10 years,,so please do not warn me about the importance of running AV software....i just need help with mscofig startup tab and the proper manual registry edit to prevent avast from starting up with vista boot.
in previous versions of avast i have ALWAYS done a minimal install, set avast services to manual and disabled avast startup through msconfig. VERY SIMPLE AND VERY CLEAN, I LOVED AVAST FOR THIS!! this is the main reason why i prefer avast over any other AV,,,because it allowed me to disable it so thuroughly and yet still use it to scan individual files if i deemed necessary. i just built a new system and installed the latest version of avast to find that out that it will not let me edit the startup tab in msconfig. please provide me the proper registry edit to manually prevent avast from starting up when vista boots up.
thankyou in advance for your help.
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Something to try: Right click the avast! icon and go to program settings/troubleshooting. Check the box for "disable avast self-defense module" and see if you can can edit the startup tab then.
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ThankYou very much Sded! just a simple program setting!
for anyone who may read this post and use avast in the same minimal way i do:
-you must first start avast services back up (if u set to "manual" like me).
-then checkmark "disable avast self-defense module" as sded said.
-then edit msconfig startup tab.
-then go back to services.msc and set avast services back to "manual".
-reboot and avast is gone from systems tray and processes tab!
this IMHO is what makes avast so great. unlike other crappy paid AV software, avast allows you total
control over it without jumping through a 100 hoops.
thankyou much for a great , effective and free AV program,
Soop
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Glad you were successful. Hadn't tried that one, but that is the way the self defense module is supposed to work. :)
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Hadn't tried that one, but that is the way it is supposed to work.
Sorry to disagree.
avast is not supplied as, not designed to be an "on demand scanner". The design is intended to be a full function anti-virus product.
It is possible to cripple the product as discussed in this thread. However please do not be surprised if the future developments of the product make it more difficult for it to be run in this crippled configuration.
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Hadn't tried that one, but that is the way it is supposed to work.
Sorry to disagree.
avast is not supplied as, not designed to be an "on demand scanner". The design is intended to be a full function anti-virus product.
It is possible to cripple the product as discussed in this thread. However please do not be surprised if the future developments of the product make it more difficult for it to be run in this crippled configuration.
Permit me to disagree with you, alanrf. I have waited for more than three years, but finally I am glad to see someone use Avast the way I have been using it. As strictly an on-demand scanner.
Cheers, SooperHOP, I also have Vista 32 bit edition.
The ability to "cripple" the program into a highly efficient high-quality on-demand scanner is what has been keeping me with Avast for so long. You see, four years ago I was an F-prot antivirus user. It was all good and well until they released their new version which introduced one service and one additional permanent process. That means I had to live with those new memory hoggers, and if I decided to disable them, F-prot became unusuable. I also had tried Nod32. It was the same. For that very reason, I gave up on the new version of Ad-Aware too, even though I used to like it.
The ability to "cripple" the product in a way that allows me to keep a top-end high-quality on-demand scanner is the number one feature I am looking for and will look for in an anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware/anti-rootkit solution. Sure, I have lost virus chest, but I can safely say that I can isolate and report a suspicious file by using alternative means. On the other hand, I do not have a single Avast service or process running in the background. And from a perfomance or a stability point of view that helps. It helps a lot.
That "crippling" allowed me to bypass Wow keyboard problems that everyone else experienced while they were using the "full features". The "crippling" allowed me to have a normal browsing experience without the countless blocked emails or internet web page access denial that I have been reading in the forums for so long. And I can't imagine how many games and applications are working much better for me due to the reason that I am always being highly efficient in terms of what I allow to run in my process and service list and what I do not.
Well, you call it "crippling", but I have another name for this ability of an AV solution to become a minimalistic top protector.
I call it maximum perfomance on computer games, applications, the Internet, and that includes a much better overall computer stability. When one wants to squeeze the last frame-per-second possible in a computer game, achieve maximum stability, and eliminate all possible problems, you will realize that even on a top-end computer, the ability to "cripple" an AV solution, or any other application for that matter becomes invaluable.
I am deeply saddened to learn that the new version will force us to use 2 services and one additional driver and/or process in Avast. Even though I have been a very happy Avast user for more than three years, even though I have recommended it to my friends and personally installed it for them, I will doubtlessly look elsewhere for my protection, if achieving maximum performance in my games while still keeping a top-end fully-functional scanner intact becomes impossible.
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I have no problems with you disagreeing with me.
The avast team have, in the past, given the impression about the product I have tried to convey. If I am misquoting them the fault is mine. The possible future direction represents my thoughts only too.
I believe that having to wait three years for someone to vindicate your wishes tends to support rather than diminish my comments. Surely to any logical thought - if the remarkably capable avast team intended to provide an on demand scanner they would have made it so very much easier than this.
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@doomer
I can easily understand your arguments fro the stripped down installation, but I would like some more clarification on the alleged performance issue.
Personally, I have only installed the Standard Shield and I stop it when I want zero interaction with other programs. Do you imply that this configuration could impact performance i any noticeable way?
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Doomer Said:
[The ability to "cripple" the program into a highly efficient high-quality on-demand scanner is what has been keeping me with Avast for so long.]
[The ability to "cripple" the product in a way that allows me to keep a top-end high-quality on-demand scanner is the number one feature I am looking for and will look for in an anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware/anti-rootkit solution.]
CHEERS RIGHT BACK AT YA DOOMER!!
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it amazes me how companies feel the need to idiot proof everything. like microsoft creating the UAC for vista and Security Center back in XP, as if i don't know if i have a firewall up or not!! LOL. some people, like me i guess, are called power users. we turn all the nonsence off to get the most out of our systems, but we still keep things installed ready to load incase a problem should arise. we do not want a mother hen on our back slowing us down checking every click making sure it's naughty or nice.
as for any other minimalist or "power users" here is a good website to help guide you through vista services and which ones you can disable.
first kill the mother hen features on vista here:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/supertweaks.htm
then tweak her down in services:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm
also, IF YOU GAME YOU SHOULD DISABLE "SUPERFETCH" in services. this service uses all of your free ram as a cache to store information pertaining to what you have done and or may do next. this only helps to load things like excel 2 nano seconds quicker the next time you click on it because it was stored in your ram as a cache. to see my point; prior to disabling "Superfetch" click CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. windows task manager will load. go to the "Performance Tab" and under "Physical Memory" see how much is in the "Free" row. i have 4 gigs of ram in my PC, yet the free row only showed 6 to 12 MB free. went online and learned the vista SP1 uses your "free" ram as a cache via SuperFetch. i disabled superfetch rebooted and i had my ram back!! 2485 MB of ram was freed up!! I ABSOLUTELY NOTICED THE DIFFERENCE WHEN GAMING.....MUCH MUCH SMOOTHER!!!
in other words vista SP1 was loading my ram up (via superfetch) with a bunch of crap information while i was gaming. but not anymore and what a difference!!
and sadly; if avast goes the route of idiot proofing it's great software and doesn't let the owner have total control, i will be moving on and looking for something new that respects my rights to control it fully.
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Yeah, it's very easy to call something idiot... the problem is that things are not that simple as you imagine, and there are usually reasons for the changes (trust me, developers don't change things just because they are bored; if something works, it's better to keep it as it is).
Actually, Vista is a big reason to move towards the "scanning-in-service only" model (where the particular GUI scanners just call this service, i.e. they won't work without it running) - because of its beloved UAC. If even the Administrator is not a real administrator there, what else can you do if you want to scan the real files, and not just some stupid virtual copies? (except for bothering the user with UAC pop-ups each time they want to start the scanner, which is not very nice either)
The inability to kill avast! processes is a useful feature (unrelated to the above) against the active malware. Yes, some people won't like it, but a VAST majority of the users will only benefit from it. But - if you know what you're doing, you can disable it in avast! settings.
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well i meant no harm by using the term "idiot proofing". it's a term used across many industries to describe new technologies that make things "simple" for the consumer. i believe the term "idiot proofing" originated in the car industry back in the early 80's when they started switching from gauges to warning lights (or "idiot lights") on the dash board.
the bottom line is: as long as avast allows me to have total control over it, i will use it proudly because it is a great AV product!
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That Blackviper site is absolute garbage. Problem is you get a noob who thinks he will speed up his machine and just blindly turn off services. In today's world of dual core/quad core processors, 2+ gigs of ram(many gamers running at least 4gigs), fast hard drives, etc...disabling services to gain performance is basically pissing up a rope. I've worked on quite a few machines were the owner disabled a bunch of services and then had problems and had no clue why. "Ah I can't connect to my network shares and I can't print all of a sudden". I've even seen people go into msconfig and disable all services. ::)
Also, there was a nice debate on Hardforum about disabling resident AV to gain performance, it was a good read. In the end most people came to the conclusion that with today's AV products and current hardware the advantages of disabling resident AV were basically nothing in terms of gaining performance. Granted if you have a single core processor, 1 gig of ram, and a slow drive, everything will seem slow.
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disabling services to gain performance is basically pissing up a rope.
LOL, nice analogy! to each his own. and yes i do agree some people need an idiot proof system and they should never type services.msc in the run box! but for people like me who have there system over clocked 26%, we are tweakers by nature. i want to understand every part of vista and totally control the PC's i build. the blackviper site provides a quick easy chart to read with breif discriptions of each service in vista. even if i only use it as a refference to turn off a couple services here and there, reading through each one gives me a much better understanding of vista and how to do my job better in the future.
some people like tool bars, instant messaging and mouse pointer themes, not me...lol
i realize this forum is not for the minimalist. people here seem to be content with having 50 plus processes running on a fresh boot,,, that would just drive me nuts not knowing what is running and why!!
but anyhow, thats enough time wasted on this off topic, thanks for the answer i needed sded.
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That Blackviper site is absolute garbage. Problem is you get a noob who thinks he will speed up his machine and just blindly turn off services.
<snip>
Well the site really can't be completely blamed for the stupidity of the user, it is a tool and how that tool is used is the crux of the matter and proves the analogy a bad workman always blames the tools.
As you say with todays new systems the need isn't so great to tweak your system within an inch of its life (to increase speed) and the only way to test that 'within and inch of its life' is to tweak till it goes bang and back off an inch ;D
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disabling services to gain performance is basically pissing up a rope.
LOL, nice analogy! to each his own. and yes i do agree some people need an idiot proof system and they should never type services.msc in the run box! but for people like me who have there system over clocked 26%, we are tweakers by nature. i want to understand every part of vista and totally control the PC's i build. the blackviper site provides a quick easy chart to read with breif discriptions of each service in vista. even if i only use it as a refference to turn off a couple services here and there, reading through each one gives me a much better understanding of vista and how to do my job better in the future.
some people like tool bars, instant messaging and mouse pointer themes, not me...lol
i realize this forum is not for the minimalist. people here seem to be content with having 50 plus processes running on a fresh boot,,, that would just drive me nuts not knowing what is running and why!!
but anyhow, thats enough time wasted on this off topic, thanks for the answer i needed sded.
Minimalist and Vista, hmm contradiction in terms almost.
I have Vista loaded in a VM.
I'm minimalist also, I don't even have a instant messenger installed. I run XP pro and have two things that run in my taskbar on startup, a firewall and Avast. I leave other services alone. I've been to the blackviper site several times in the past, going back 5+ years ago, then he took it down and put it back up. It is handy if you're not sure exactly what a certain service does. I just think that even knowing what each service does you don't really gain much by disabling anything. Superprefetch in Vista is an area of debate, some people swear by it some don't. There's been quite a few threads again on Hardforum about that. I mention Hardforum because it's a very good forum that I have been going to for at least 10 years with knowledgeable people. You do get the Vista fanboy crowd in there though.
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Thank you, SooperHOP for that Vista advice. Unfortunately, Blackviper does not load for me, overloaded maybe. But I did go to my other Vista favourite tweak site which is
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2238
Well this time around, based on your advice I did almost any tweak that I deemed necessary, as for example the service for optimized network compression transfer. I have to admit I do not need Remote Differential Compression, if I am not doing network transfer on my home PC on a daily basis. But people like street_lethal who are not on good terms with how an operating system works will say inadequate statements such as
"In today's world of dual core/quad core processors, 2+ gigs of ram(many gamers running at least 4gigs), fast hard drives, etc...disabling services to gain performance is basically pissing up a rope."
And more..
"Problem is you get a noob who thinks he will speed up his machine and just blindly turn off services. "
Well, it's not turning off services blindly per se, provided that you actually do read what a service's function is. Unfortunately for people like you, street_lethal, who started using computers a year ago, and cannot even understand what optimizing system performance means, will not understand what a service does even if they do read its description, so they don't even bother with that, but declare instead that
"I've even seen people go into msconfig and disable all services."
And
"In the end most people came to the conclusion that with today's AV products and current hardware the advantages of disabling resident AV were basically nothing in terms of gaining performance."
Wow.. if that was true we'd all be using Symantec. Please, am laughing hard.
But here is where the debate ends
"I'm minimalist also, I don't even have a instant messenger installed. I run XP pro.."
Well that does it. So he could not even afford to buy the Ultimate edition of Microsoft Windows Vista which automatically means he is not knowledgeable on the inner workings of a Vista system, because he has not had any first-hand experience with it. How then can he provide genuine statements and declarations about it?
Anyway...
Thanks again SooperHOP.
As I have already said, I did visit my Vista tweak site, will try Viper again, I hope they bring it back online soon. ;)
And I did a few optimizations.
It is precisely as you described it, SooperHOP. By disabling Superfetch, my system turned into Windows 95 performance-wise. And I thought my Vista was fast as it is, because it single-handedly disposed of any Win XP OS I have ever seen in terms of perfomance, stability, and security. But disabling Superfetch turned it into a monster performer. No more 2 minutes of pre-fetching on boot. Vista actually starts efficiently now.. The moment I am in the desktop I can start working. When I still had Superfetch on I had to wait for the 'A.I.' to prefetch the things it thought I needed to have prefetched
... for 2 minutes. xD
In addition, I also scoured through all the 99 steps of my guide and streamlined my Vista.
Oh .....
my...
God.
It is indeed a Windows 95 performer now... on a high-end pc... and DirectX 10 enabled with the maximum details, and all the other sweet Vista features and enhancements.
Which is nice.
Thank you, SooperHOP. I greatly appreciate your help, and I do hope to hear more about Vista from you.
In the meantime I am preparing a Vista guide based on my experience after optimizing it, and will post what I did in detail, for instance, disabling what and which was useful, and which is not. That is, of course, based on what I am using my PC for. Still, it is amazing how easy it was to turn my Vista from the fastest Operating System in the market at the moment to the fastest and best computer operating system known in the history of mankind.
Thank you again, SooperHOP.
I'd better prepare the Ultimate Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Vista(TM) Ultimate edition guide and post it on General Forums here soon. ;)
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I'm minimalist also, I don't even have a instant messenger installed. I run XP pro and have two things that run in my taskbar on startup, a firewall and Avast. I leave other services alone. I've been to the blackviper site several times in the past, going back 5+ years ago, then he took it down and put it back up. It is handy if you're not sure exactly what a certain service does. I just think that even knowing what each service does you don't really gain much by disabling anything. Superprefetch in Vista is an area of debate, some people swear by it some don't. There's been quite a few threads again on Hardforum about that. I mention Hardforum because it's a very good forum that I have been going to for at least 10 years with knowledgeable people. You do get the Vista fanboy crowd in there though.
It's fair to say in a security forum, that disabling unnecessary services and other programs is not primarily a question about performance, but mainly a question about security. Every running piece of code (including all the unused Windows features) are potential vulnerabilities, so disabling unnecessary features is a good idea. Isn't this common knowledge in the security community?
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So you buy Vista to disable everything to get it to work like Doomer said "Windows 95" lol.
Doomer, I use Vista everyday. I also deal with people everyday who adopt Vista who piss their time away trying to get it to work like their prior OS..usually XP. A lot of these people are usually gamers(some won't admit they're gamers..odd), who want DirectX 10 and want to see the subtle differences in games. To each his own. I know damn well what most services do what Doomer, you need a guide. My point, show me concrete proof of the performance gained by disabling any of them on a high end system. Not saying there's zero performance gain, in most cases it's not worth the hassle. And don't point me to some link to some guy's blog who pulls figures from his ass. Not "OMG, OMG, the system runs like Windows 95". WTF? LMAO.
To the other guy above me, there's a lot more to security than disabling remote desktop, telnet, upnp, etc...If you're talking about a home desktop system that's behind a router or other type of firewall and a solid AV ...in most cases/environments..not all.. it doesn't mean squat. But yes there are some services that could pose more of a security risk if others areas of your security measures are lacking.
Oh and back on point I like to add I think it's good that Avast has measures in place so it's not easily disabled.
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It's fair to say in a security forum, that disabling unnecessary services and other programs is not primarily a question about performance, but mainly a question about security. Every running piece of code (including all the unused Windows features) are potential vulnerabilities, so disabling unnecessary features is a good idea. Isn't this common knowledge in the security community?
wow, very good point! i remember i use to "uninstall" all the features in my local area connection properties like "file and printer sharing for microsoft networks" for security reasons. but this system i plan to network.
i hope those links work for u doomer. i've had great performance gains with indexing turned off and superfetch disabled. ironically the blackviper guy recommends keeping superfetch on....i do not! especially for those who use ram intensive programs like games, superfetch must be disabled in this case!!
street, i think his windows 95 comment was to refer to how few processes he has running and therefor how little ram (like 95) he is using on a fresh boot of vista. what in gods name do i need a sidebar for????? i hate these over blown features in vista, i just want it's kernel!! windows 7 is coming out soon anyway.
ALSO FOR YOU ON DEMAND FILE SCANNERS like me try this site: i use it when i have a very suspicious file, any other scan i use right click avast scan.
http://www.virustotal.com/
avast is part of the scan:) sometimes you get 1 or 2 hits and it's just a false positive. 5 or more and i'd say it's safe to conclude the file is infected.
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mis click