Provider is waiting for a subsystem to start

[ewm]

Q1: That's the message that appears when I have Outlook/Exchange highlighted in the on screen Access Scanner dialog box. But I'm confused because I use Outlook Express and it IS running, essentially whenever I double-click to open it. When I get messages. When I'm writing messages. So what am I missing? Is there a problem with avast?

Q2: Could avast be the reason why my printer function acts funky when trying to print an email message while avast seems to be doing something? I couldn't print the messages, I couldn't get a response from any printer--EXCEPT about half an hour later and then it started spewing pages out uncontrollably.

Thanks for your help!

[DavidR]

1. Your missing that the Outlook/Exchange is a plug-in for MS Outlook (not express), unless you have MS Outlook installed, then this avast provider isn't required nor is it enabled by default.

So do you have MS Outlook ?
If not, disable it as the sub-system the outlook/exchange provider is waiting for is MS Outlook.

2. avast has no interaction with your printer and shouldn't be an issue. However, I have seen similar in relation to remnants of or another antivirus installed.

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

As you will notice from my signature I also use OE and no problems, with it or printing from it.

Please define (in a little more detail) "my printer function acts funky when trying to print an email message" while avast seems to be doing something (and what is avast trying to do) ?

[ewm]

David, thank you so much for getting back. I really appreciate it. I'm totally unfamiliar with Avast (it's on my Dad's computer) so if you're monitoring this thread, I have just a few follow up Qs:

1. (I'm not at the computer that has avast right now so I can't check it directly at the moment.) But I think you're advising that, if my Dad doesn't have Outlook, then I should go into Avast and disable Outlook as the sub-system? Could you just let me know--where do I do that . . . in something like Preferences or Options?

2. Also, if he has only Outlook Express, will Avast still function as the anti-virus program? (Can I enable OE once I disable Outlook?) From my quick scan of Avast, it seems to have other capabilities in addition to email virus protection that would make it useful.

You're right about other protection programs being on his computer. I found a spyware program and an adware program which may have been causing conflicts so I uninstalled them.

Here's what was happening with the printers: yesterday when he had a message open and tried to print, it took much longer than normal to get responses to keystrokes. Plus, nothing ever printed until much later, and then the output for a 1-2 page message came to something like 138 pages. Maybe it was a problem with the email message itself (it's in html). But when he got out of mail, everything would print just fine.

So still trying to figure that one out.

If you see this follow-up, thanks in advance for any help you can provide for the new questions. 

ewm

[DavidR]

1. Yes, but it shouldn't have been enabled in the first place so someone has been tweaking

I somehow doubt he has MS Outlook or you wouldn't be getting the message, or MS Outlook isn't running and that is what avast is waiting for, it to start.

2. If he has Outlook Express then that is covered by the avast! Internet Mail provider. You aren't enabling or disabling actual email programs, they should be running as you normally use them.

What I'm suggesting is to disable (Terminate) the redundant avast shields (providers) for those applications that your father doesn't use:
The Outlook/Exchange provider, if no MS Outlook installed.
The Instant Messenger, if your father doesn't use Instant Messaging programs.
The P2P shield, if your father doesn't use P2P (peer to peer) file sharing programs.

Basically the rest are what I would call essential.

The most crucial information is the security programs (their names) that have been installed, especially previous Anti Virus applications as they are the ones most likely to conflict. With the names it may be possible to find tools to ensure that all remnants are gone, with this information there is very little I can suggest.

[ewm]

Thanks, David. Will terminate those shields that you suggest.

The 2 programs that I uninstalled were called:

Adware 2007 by Lavasoft
SpyBot Search & Destroy

I saw that he has a McAfee plug-in for his Firefox browser that verifies sites. I have left that as is.

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

neither adaware or S&D would have had any impact/conflict on avast really, occasional the resident protection of either could take out the avast tray icon. AdAware really is no loss it hasn't kept pace with the progress of today's anti-spyware, S&D not so bad but there are better.

If you haven't already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and periodically run them.

• 1. SUPERantispyware On-Demand only in free version.
• 2. MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, On-Demand only in free version http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/malwarebytes/mbam-setup.exe, right click on the link and select Save As or Save File (As depending on your browser), save it to a location where you can find it easily later.

A belated welcome to the forums.