Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Lisandro on April 25, 2011, 03:13:37 AM
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I've tried 4 restore points and I could never restore any of them.
Microsoft says it is the antivirus which is blocking the restore.
Disabling avast until reboot does not work.
Disabling self defense module does not work.
Can anyone tell me exactly what is going on?
Is avast incompatible with Windows System Restore?
(Please, do NOT discuss Windows System Restore itself)
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If it helps, with AIS 6.0.100 I managed to restore successfully, havent tried it with the new version yet..
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I used system restore yesterday because i deleted a driver that i thought i didn't need and it worked fine with the latest version of avast.
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yeah I didn't need to restore my system recently but I've been there before: can be hell, even impossible to restore a system when Avast is installed. Seems to work better in safe mode.
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Its not only avast it happens with other AV also.. I have also tried system restore with other AV before but no success...
Thanks
Ash
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that's right, it happens with other security suites too.
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Since I'm "fooling around" quite a lot with my machine I am using the win7 restore point frequently (about twice a week).
So far I never experienced any difficulties with restore points at all. Everything is working as advertised.
The only thing I regularly do is some "housekeeping" by killing selected not needed restore points comfortably with "CCleaner" when the list is becoming too long.
This statement is true for all AVAST!FREE versions including beta or pre-release builds.
PS:
About half a year ago I had massive problems with restore points and also Win-Recovery-Environment. The reason for that was some corrupted data in BCD which were just pointing nowhere. After repair everything was working normal and reliably.
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It's not reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
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I haven't been having any restore problems. How many restore points do you keep around? I do an image weekly, and as part of that use Microsoft Disk Cleanup to delete all but the latest restore point, so things are pretty clean. I also note from looking within System Volume Information that "C:\System Volume Information\SystemRestore\FRStaging\## aswSnx private storage" is there, so maybe heavy use of sandboxing could be a factor?
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It's not reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Another suggestion for you, Tech:
May be the diskspace for restore points on your system is too small (I had that problem also some time ago). Just go to "System Properties" and hit the tab "Computer Protection". There you can adjust the space reserved for restore points and give it at least 10% of your disk space for every partition.
A common thing with windows is also:
If you try to restore a point which is let's say the 10th oldest in the list, sometimes it's not even available anymore although it is listed!
If that does not help I've got no further idea about your problem.
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It's not reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Another suggestion for you, Tech:
May be the diskspace for restore points on your system is too small (I had that problem also some time ago). Just go to "System Properties" and hit the tab "Computer Protection". There you can adjust the space reserved for restore points and give it at least 10% of your disk space for every partition.
A common thing with windows is also:
If you try to restore a point which is let's say the 10th oldest in the list, sometimes it's not even available anymore although it is listed!
If that does not help I've got no further idea about your problem.
No I am damn sure its because of an antivirus.... Earlier I used Quick Heal Total Security and had same problem when i removed the problem solved
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It's not reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Another suggestion for you, Tech:
May be the diskspace for restore points on your system is too small (I had that problem also some time ago). Just go to "System Properties" and hit the tab "Computer Protection". There you can adjust the space reserved for restore points and give it at least 10% of your disk space for every partition.
A common thing with windows is also:
If you try to restore a point which is let's say the 10th oldest in the list, sometimes it's not even available anymore although it is listed!
If that does not help I've got no further idea about your problem.
No I am damn sure its because of an antivirus.... Earlier I used Quick Heal Total Security and had same problem when i removed the problem solved
That really is "a good step forward"! ;D ;D ;D
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main issues with Avast and system restore are:
1 the self-defense module
2 the behavior shield
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If you try to restore a point which is let's say the 10th oldest in the list, sometimes it's not even available anymore although it is listed!
Although it's listed? I don't think Microsoft would make such a mistake... It's unbelievable.
I'm not running out of space. The WSR runs at maximum capacity. The restore points that fail are three days ago...
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If you try to restore a point which is let's say the 10th oldest in the list, sometimes it's not even available anymore although it is listed!
Although it's listed? I don't think Microsoft would make such a mistake... It's unbelievable.
I'm not running out of space. The WSR runs at maximum capacity. The restore points that fail are three days ago...
I would never claim Microsoft did a mistake but my system does it and there are some others who experienced this.
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confirming, the older restore points are, the less chance you got that restoring will succeed.
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confirming, the older restore points are, the less chance you got that restoring will succeed.
If you set them to max (also see Reply #9) on any newer HD, there shouldn't be a problem.
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confirming, the older restore points are, the less chance you got that restoring will succeed.
If you set them to max (also see Reply #) on any newer HD, there shouldn't be a problem.
nothing to do with reserved disk space, it just happens that old restore points are not relevant enough for the system to be restored using them.
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nothing to do with reserved disk space, it just happens that old restore points are not relevant enough for the system to be restored using them.
It has, but could be it was a misunderstanding with what you meant...
asyn
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The problem is that, sometimes, avast is being accused by Microsoft as being culprit of the fail.
Does avast team have anything to say?
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I have never used a restore point so I keep my disk usage for it at 1%. I never have more than 4 available. I think that should be more than sufficient.
I have read though that there can be problems with many AV's when trying to use a restore point. It seems to stem from trying to reinstall an older signature database. I remember there being some mention of it in Comodo's forums.
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It seems to stem from trying to reinstall an older signature database. I remember there being some mention of it in Comodo's forums.
So, there is an incompatibility with antivirus programs? Disable is not enough?
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It seems to stem from trying to reinstall an older signature database. I remember there being some mention of it in Comodo's forums.
So, there is an incompatibility with antivirus programs? Disable is not enough?
I have never needed to use Windows 7 System Restore but it does save a backup every Tuesday morning and selected Keep only the latest system image and minimize space used by backup
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Again, the discussion is NOT about Windows System Restore or backups but about avast team come here and say something WHY WINDOWS SYSTEM RESTORE DOES NOT WORK WITH AVAST ALL THE TIME...
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Again, the discussion is NOT about Windows System Restore or backups but about avast team come here and say something WHY WINDOWS SYSTEM RESTORE DOES NOT WORK WITH AVAST ALL THE TIME...
You know the avast! team better than me so you need to contact them.
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I did a Windows Registry Restore with AIS and the Windows Restore screwed up AIS. :o :o
I was able to fix it.
After that I stopped using the Windows Registry Restore and have only used A full Windows Restore which includes a restore of the System Image. I had no problem with that. Everything went smoothly :) :)
Conclusion: I think that there could be some conflict between Avast AIS and Windows Registry Restore. I have no idea what it could be or even guess what it is.
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You know the avast! team better than me so you need to contact them.
I am contacting them. Don't they read the forums?
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It seems to stem from trying to reinstall an older signature database. I remember there being some mention of it in Comodo's forums.
So, there is an incompatibility with antivirus programs? Disable is not enough?
I'm not quite sure if the problem was with the definitions or with the file that stores the scan data. Now that I think of it, the problem at Comodo was from the sfi.dat file that stored the data about what had been scanned before. Like the persistent cache that Avast has. It was locked and would not allow system restore to go back to an earlier dated version of it so the restore attempts would fail.
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Tech,
I had the same problem when trying to fix a problem a little over a month ago. I could not restore to any prior date. I had done restores multiple times, with Avast installed, with no problems. Threads below might help....maybe...no idea if that was the problem with restore but it was a BIG problem.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=76974.0
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here is the other thread http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=76974.0
One other thing I noticed when the computer slow-down problems started was tht the Cleaner function of CCleaner was not finding near as many files to delete. Once getting rid of the Alureon problem, the file size that was found went back (up) to what I was seeing before.
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I've had problems with system restore too and gave up on it months ago. I tried disabling Avast and also tried from safe mode and can't get it to work. I keep a current image with Acronis restore takes about 10 min.
Joe
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The problem is that, sometimes, avast is being accused by Microsoft as being culprit of the fail.
Does avast team have anything to say?
don't know where you heard about that but definitely yes, when a recent restore point fails to restore the system, ie sometimes even using the latest RP, then Avast, when installed, is the culprit, there's no doubt about that. I've seen it happen enough times.
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I'm not quite sure if the problem was with the definitions or with the file that stores the scan data. Now that I think of it, the problem at Comodo was from the sfi.dat file that stored the data about what had been scanned before. Like the persistent cache that Avast has. It was locked and would not allow system restore to go back to an earlier dated version of it so the restore attempts would fail.
Good shot. Can't avast detect a legit attempt of Windows System Restore to avoid such behavior (if it exists)?
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I have no problems with System Restore in Windows 7 with AIS ver 6.0.1091. But this might wanna interest you HERE (http://"http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/159425-system-restore-question-hopefully-simple.html")
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I have no problems with System Restore in Windows 7 with AIS ver 6.0.1091. But this might wanna interest you HERE (http://"http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/159425-system-restore-question-hopefully-simple.html")
Very interesting but it displays Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
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Oh..it's fine here with me though. Kindly see (Chrome/FF4 and IE9). Anyway it's this:
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/159425-system-restore-question-hopefully-simple.html
Just sharing.
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Ethan's remarks where uncalled for. Retaliating in a like manner makes you just as wrong YoKenny. :o
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Newbie yes. Lot to learn yes. But respect is needed wether newbie or not. Mistakes happen but not all come from newbies like me. Even old-geeks like you are guilty of it. I was wrong there in using the link..I did not know it yet. Just pointed out how you seem to reply with the link I provided. Now the mistakes are hard to accept. Thanks for the link.
Thank you for the warmness. Some people...
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ethan, I have no trouble on taking a restore point (links you've posted).
The problem is restoring.
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Sorry there.
Mods you can remove my last post. Will not stoop that low anymore. Got carried away there.
@Tech,
I was to post some additional links. Incidentally, are you using CTM..? It's in your sig..Tried CTM before and it borked my system. Had to use an image backup to recover. Might you be interested for a Paragon System Backup 10 Special Edition...? Just let me know. I can ask someone for a spare license.
Anyway, kindly see below. Might find some similarity or ideas. Good luck.
http://forums.comodo.com/empty-t54730.0.html
http://forums.comodo.com/install-setup-configuration-help-cis/sfidat-t39914.0.html;msg300101
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/90847-comodo-time-machine-partition.html
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic271374.html
http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/windows-7-management-support/32470-system-restore-not-working-windows-7-error-code-0x80071a90-3.html
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-7/974842-system-restore-not-working-searched.html
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ethan, thanks for the effort.
I'm not using CTM at the moment.
Also, this is a problem between avast and Windows System Restore.
I want, if possible, that someone of the programmers give me a help on why avast is blocking the system restore randomically (specially after a virus definitions update).
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Newbie yes. Lot to learn yes. But respect is needed wether newbie or not. Mistakes happen but not all come from newbies like me. Even old-geeks like you are guilty of it. I was wrong there in using the link..I did not know it yet. Just pointed out how you seem to reply with the link I provided. Now the mistakes are hard to accept. Thanks for the link.
Thank you for the warmness. Some people...
+10000
Thanks for the effort..
A suggestion from anyone will help many of us here.
Thanks
Ash
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Another user with problems with System Restore
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=61928.msg642953#msg642953
Not a word from avast team.
Shame.
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Tech,
Have you tried the following:
http://www.askvg.com/fix-windows-7-deletes-all-system-restore-points-upon-reboot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AskVG+%28AskVG%29 (http://www.askvg.com/fix-windows-7-deletes-all-system-restore-points-upon-reboot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AskVG+%28AskVG%29)
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Tech, I always had the system restore problem while running avast. I has happened ot 3 different computers using windows 7, Vista and XP. The last few times I tried to restore my system it didn't even want to boot properly. It always loaded until the moment i need to enter my password and then there was only black screen. I couldn't get to the point where my desktop gets loaded. The only way to boot was to do it in safe mode. The moment i uninstalled avast and restarted everything got running just fine and windows booter normally and informed me that it has successfuly restored the system. I'm still using avast , but i know that if i ever need to restore my system again i should uninstall avast first...It's a shame.
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Tech,
Have you tried the following:
http://www.askvg.com/fix-windows-7-deletes-all-system-restore-points-upon-reboot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AskVG+%28AskVG%29 (http://www.askvg.com/fix-windows-7-deletes-all-system-restore-points-upon-reboot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AskVG+%28AskVG%29)
I never need that. It's for a high fragmented pagefile.sys. Not my case.
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Tech, I always had the system restore problem while running avast.
Thanks for sharing. At least it would not be my voice only...
It's a shame.
+1
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AGAIN... AVAST INSTALLATION GOT TOTALLY CORRUPT AFTER A CORRECT SYSTEM RESTORE.
NOW, OR SYSTEM RESTORE WORKS AND I NEED TO UNINSTALL AVAST AND INSTALL AGAIN, LOSING ALL MY SETTINGS, OR I CAN'T USE SYSTEM RESTORE.
TOO MUCH NEW APPLICATIONS AND FEATURES AND THE OLD AND GOOD ANTIVIRUS PROBLEMS AREN'T BEING SOLVED.
YEAH. DOUBLE POSTING >:(
I HATE THIS LOSE OF TIME... WORSE: IT START BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO TEST AVAST FOR ANDROID >:( :(
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Tech, I have been able to suscessfully restore WIN 7 x64 SP1 multiple times with Avast 6 installed.
What I have found out is one or more reboots are required before you see the message on your desktop that WIN 7 has been sucessfully retored. Usually the reboot after system restore is a wipeout. Either the desktop will lockup or the dreaded black screen appears. A hard shutdown via the power switch and reboot usually works but not always. Sometimes one or two more hard shutdowns and reboots are required.
Afterwards I did not observe any Avast anomalies or coruption.
Obviously, Avast is impacting the system restore so this does need to be fixed. I also believe that delaying Avast's startup till the latest possible moment or disabling startup entirely would also help when doing a system restore.
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Thanks.
I'll try this if avast messed everything again.
Anyway, I've tried boot twice and it help NOTHING.
Man, I'm very angry with this problem does not get solved in anyway.
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Tech, I have been able to suscessfully restore WIN 7 x64 SP1 multiple times with Avast 6 installed.
I've also not had any problems with system restore on Win7 on a 32 bit system.
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I wonder if this will do the trick prior to performing a WIN 7 system restore?
In the Avast GUI Troubleshooting section:
- uncheck Enable rootkit scanning at system startup.
- uncheck Enable Avast! self-defense module.
- checkmark Load Avast services only after loading other system services.
I am learning toward Enable Avast! self-defense module as the culprit.
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Self defense was off. System restore worked. Avast repair is a joke.
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For what it is worth, Avast not alone with system restore issues. Symantec's NIS has issues. So much so, its forum recommends a total NIS reinstall after a system restore. From what I can gather, issues are the same - NIS modules are out of sync with retored OS components.
The culprit from what I can tell is all the modern AVs are using .dll injection to enforce OS component integrity.
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For what it is worth, Avast not alone with system restore issues.
Worse for avast...
A known problem not corrected.
Not even acknowledged.
Not even they seem to have interest on it...
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Self defense was off. System restore worked. Avast repair is a joke.
So with Self-Defense off before a system restore, system restore will always work? Or only sometimes.
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So with Self-Defense off before a system restore, system restore will always work? Or only sometimes.
Always? No, I can't say that.
But, when it works, avast get messed.
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I guess I am somewhat puzzled as to why you don't test using a VM? VMWare's VM takes about 10 mins. to set up.
Or, take an image backup before testing? I use Paragon's software and always image from a bootable CD with WIN PE on it. Image of my 40 GB partition takes 5 min. max. I never had an image restore fail when imaging off of a Paragon boot CD with WIN PE on it.
BTW - WIN 7 includes an image backup/restore utility. I haven't used it so can't vouch for it.
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BTW - WIN 7 includes an image backup/restore utility. I haven't used it so can't vouch for it.
@DonZ63
The Win7 image backup is very reliable but isn't the same as the System Restore function.
Making an image backup also takes a great deal more time and certainly isn't something
you'll do before trying a new program. :)
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Any good imaging software will allow for full and incremental image backups. Also the incremental imaging can run in Windows in the background. Paragon calls that "hot processing" I believe. Incremental image backups only contain system changes since the last full backup. A typical senerio is do a full image backup weekly and incremental ones daily.
Bottom line, you can do imaging incrementally and not even know it's running. The drawback is the image restore is a bit more complicated since you have to restore the last full image backup and then each of the incremental ones. Most good imaging software will automate most of this.
I am just old fashioned and don't trust imaging out of Windows.
As far as if it is an appropriate solution for a single program installation is relative. A malware infection is a single program install in reality.
In a single PC test environment, a virtual machine is the preferred platform I would say.
Actually, more and more people are creating a VM just to run their browser from. Get infected, no problem. Re-create the VM or reload from a backup. There are resource considerations with a VM. WMWare is light on resources, Microsoft's VM is a pig.
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I guess I am somewhat puzzled as to why you don't test using a VM? VMWare's VM takes about 10 mins. to set up.
1st I did.
2nd It got some impact on the Windows registry that I could not analyze at VM.
3rd It's my right to use system restore.
4th The culprit it the avast repair option not doing its job.
Or, take an image backup before testing? I use Paragon's software and always image from a bootable CD with WIN PE on it. Image of my 40 GB partition takes 5 min. max. I never had an image restore fail when imaging off of a Paragon boot CD with WIN PE on it.
And will avast pay me for all the time I need to do this? C'mon... It does not take 5 minutes at all on my system.
BTW - WIN 7 includes an image backup/restore utility. I haven't used it so can't vouch for it.
It works. I use it. Just that I do it weekly and I would a restore point of yesterday.
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Any good imaging software will allow for full and incremental image backups. Also the incremental imaging can run in Windows in the background. Paragon calls that "hot processing" I believe. Incremental image backups only contain system changes since the last full backup. A typical senerio is do a full image backup weekly and incremental ones daily.
I use Macrium.
Actually, more and more people are creating a VM just to run their browser from. Get infected, no problem. Re-create the VM or reload from a backup. There are resource considerations with a VM. WMWare is light on resources, Microsoft's VM is a pig.
Virtualbox also allows snapshotting what makes the work more flexible.
It's not as fast as CTM at old times. But it works.
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5 minutes for an image backup? I tried to image my system and was told first that my external HDD wasn't big enough (it's 110gb) and then was given a time estimate of about 25 minutes. I canceled it and still have never done an image on any computer I have ever used. I agree that System restore should work with Avast (or anything else) installed and still think that the persistent caching feature may have something to do with the problem since a similar feature caused the same thing for Comodo.
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Imaging has a lot a variables that affect its speed. The compression ratio selected; the higher the compression, the slower the backup.
Imaging to a second local drive is always faster and safer than creating an image on the source drive. If you are storing the image on an external USB 2.0 drive, the backup time will be signifigantly slower due the speed of USB 2.0 transfer rate. Imaging to my external USB 3.0 drive on the other hand is almost as fast as to my internal SATA 6 GB/s backup drive.
I guess I should have mentioned that my image backup times are based on a fast SATA 3 GB/s source drive to a separate destination internal SATA 6GB/s drive.
Finally there is the imaging software used. As the saying goes, not all are created equal.
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Imaging to a second local drive is always faster and safer than creating an image on the source drive.
Something you can't do using the windows 7 backup program.
They are smart enough to know that if your drive crashes, so do any partitions. ;D
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It seems that this has been going on for quite sometime. Has there been any acknowledgment from the developers on this problem? I would like to see somebody respond to this issue and what they plan on doing to fix it.
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It seems that this has been going on for quite sometime. Has there been any acknowledgment from the developers on this problem? I would like to see somebody respond to this issue and what they plan on doing to fix it.
Thanks Tgell for bringing the top back.
Another user that can't use the avast repair option (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=90256.0;topicseen).
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I'm running about 50% success on Avast repair. So I guess flip a coin perform you attempt it ;D
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Is QA happy with 50%? ???
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Is QA happy with 50%?
No. But what you going to do? Avast is a freebie. My mother taught me a long time ago that "beggars can't be chosers."
Over the years I have developed the attitude either grin and bear it or pitch it and buy software with less issues. However, as we all know many times that has issues.
I know a solution! Pitch Windows and buy a Mac. A lot of people seem to be doing that these days.