Do I really need Avast checked in Startup menu?

[lee88]

I have the Avast box checked under msconfig/startup menu. But when I boot up my computer in the morning, it is either very very slow or freezes for several minutes when I try to bring up a webpage, until the Avast popup window says new definitions have been updated. How important or necessary is it to have Avast run on startup? If I uncheck it is my computer at risk? Thanks

[DavidR]

The entry in the msconfig, isn't the program as such but the user interface avastUI.exe and is the tray icon giving access to the avast settings. Disabling it won't make much difference in resolving the problem you report (the main program will still be running) and you won't have access to the avast settings.

How long have you had avast installed and has this been an issue before ?

What changed on your system recently ?

What is your operating system, CPU and RAM ?

[lee88]

Thanks, I"ve had Avast installed for years, with updated versions, and have had this problem for that long. Maybe the problem is an old computer? I use WinXP, have "4 CPU 2.80 GHz and 1.5 GB of RAM"

[DavidR]

Well this system though old should be up to the task and isn't too dissimilar to this one I'm on right now. Up until recently it has only had 2GB of RAM.

With the number of programs I have running the commit charge on RAM was about 1.6GB so there are times when I consider it too close to my 2GB for comfort. When that close to the limit swapping out to the pagefile.sys file on hard disk becomes a bottleneck, so I felt I should upgrade the RAM as I will probably have this system for at least another year.

It may be that there is just too much going on at boot from avast and other installed applications that you allow to run on boot. You should be pretty critical about what you allow to run, security based and system applications taking priority.

You could try delaying the avast auto update check until your system is up and running I do that (from when I was on dial-up), but continue it even now.

####
- In avast5/6/7/8 you need to edit (using notepad) avast5.ini the [InetWD] section of the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Alwil Software\Avast5\avast5.ini (XP file location).
If you did a clean install of avast6 or later the folder names are slightly different, \Avast Software\Avast\ instead of \Alwil Software\Avast5\ other than that it is the same procedure.

- Broadband connections, add this line (I assume you are on broadband):
AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120 and
AssumeAlwaysConnected=1 if not present (or edit AssumeAlwaysConnected=0 to AssumeAlwaysConnected=1)

[InetWD]
AssumeAlwaysConnected=1
AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120

When complete save the changes, avast's self-defence module will ask for confirmation, etc. answer Yes.

The figure is seconds and the above equates to two minutes, you could try that and adjust upwards if required, 180, 240, etc. Given your problem it may be best to set this to 300 (5 minutes) or higher.

[lee88]

Thank you!

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

[Samson63]

+1 Thank you DavidR.

Your advice given above was also helpful to me. I am using a very old machine,  Win XP Pro SP3, 1.2GHz Celeron (Tualatin) with 512MB SDRAM @ 100MHz 

I know it's a dinosaur, but that said, it runs lean, clean and stable 

I have set the delay to 120 seconds and all is fine at boot up.

Thanks again.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

Given your lower spec system I would suggest slightly longer, 300 would probably be better.

[Samson63]

You're welcome.

Given your lower spec system I would suggest slightly longer, 300 would probably be better.

Done. Now at 5 mins delay, thanks again DavidR.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.