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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: RejZoR on July 13, 2004, 06:43:23 PM

Title: True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: RejZoR on July 13, 2004, 06:43:23 PM

What does this component do? It takes 7MB of memory and i don't have any idea why its necessary? ashMaiSv.exe is for mail scanning,ashUpdSv.exe is for updates and ashSrv.exe is main module.
I heard that its not required under Win9x. If you could somehow remove this module it would make avast! the most conservative app in terms of memory uage. Thanks

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: fhn on July 13, 2004, 07:04:12 PM

Agreed.  This program is not being used in W98.  Had a friend with a shutdown issue because ashdisp would cause WXP Pro SP1 to hang up during shutdown.

My understanding is this proggy is used for some sort of splash screen....

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: cousindave on July 13, 2004, 07:08:34 PM

Interesting 8)

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: lee16 on July 13, 2004, 07:22:27 PM

Quote

splash screen

Whats a splash screen anyone?

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: RejZoR on July 13, 2004, 07:29:08 PM

Splash screen stands for image/logo that shows itself in the center of the screen for a very short time. Usually when cetain program loads or something similar. For example when you launch avast! Simple Interface you'll see spash screen with memory scanning info.

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: Lisandro on July 13, 2004, 08:16:16 PM

ashDisp.exe is the 'icon' on system tray...
If it's crashing the shutdown, something wrong is happening and, maybe, it is not ashDisp but other part of avast (if it is avast  ;D).

Well, who am I to talk in place of Alwil team... Just my 'reading' knowleage at this forum  :-\

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: fhn on July 13, 2004, 08:25:27 PM

There's a message saying that windows cannot terminate ashdisp during shutdown.  I had him remove/reload Avast 4.1 but the problem did not go away.  He's not local so I cannot provide anymore details.

W98 has the same icon on system tray, but no ashdisp.exe.

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: RejZoR on July 13, 2004, 08:45:16 PM

Well if its the tray icon (proabably because all components run as service in NT OS),but you can force service to interact with desktop and merge ashDisp.exe with ashServ.exe. Keep only the icon and function to load everything else when you click it (On-Access panel). Just my thought.
It would decrease memory usage too i guess.

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: Lisandro on July 13, 2004, 09:17:16 PM

Quote from: RejZoR on July 13, 2004, 08:45:16 PM

Well if its the tray icon (proabably because all components run as service in NT OS),but you can force service to interact with desktop and merge ashDisp.exe with ashServ.exe. Keep only the icon and function to load everything else when you click it (On-Access panel). Just my thought.
It would decrease memory usage too i guess.

Most likely... Let the programmers say something now...
fhn, like RejZoR said, only in NT OS (like 2k/XP) we need ashDisp.exe  ;)

Title: Re:True purpose of ashDisp.exe ?
Post by: Vlk on July 13, 2004, 09:33:24 PM

Quote

It takes 7MB of memory and i don't have any idea why its necessary?

In reality it does not take more than 1MB. The rest is in fact shared with ashServ.exe (and possibly other avast processes).

Quote

Keep only the icon and function to load everything else when you click it (On-Access panel). Just my thought.

Not true in many cases. Consider the Fast User Switching feature in WinXP, for example. Multiple users logged on => multiple desktops => multiple tray icons (and ashDisp's) needed.

BTW this is how it was in avast32 3.0, and it didn't work that much.


Having ashDisp.exe a separate process is a good choice.

Vlk