Avast 8 trial version making old PC unusable

[cleoni]

Hello,
I am a  user of Avast! products since long long time.

I have seen today my customer's PC (it's a rather old XP machine), she asked me to check it out because it seemed not to be quite responsive anymore.

It resulted it had the new Avast 8 trial (to be paid soon) version with all the bells and whistles activated, the PC was slow as hell.

While I am writing, I am trying to downgrade it to the free version, hope I don't have to re-install version 7 from my disks.

Please consider there are people using old PCs and they cannot run all this stuff. Avast 7 was simply great, no need to pack more and more things on it.

Also, about the new "software updater" feature: another thing taking space and time I would gladly do without. I have just searched and there's tons of people seeking a way to disable it.

well, I just mean, "I like you software, I recommend it to everyone" but don't pack it with unnecessary stuff. "Less is more" they say, and that's true.

All the best,

Chris

[CraigB]

Any of the features/modules that are not wanted can be removed via the uninstall and change process, this can also be performed during a new install by clicking on custom install.

[DavidR]

Avast 8 free should use similar (if not less resources) that is what I have found on my XP System, so there should be no need to go back to avast 7.

You don't say what that customers system resources are like CPU and RAM, my system is 4 years old, so probably not as old as hers. But if low on RAM a little more if it is possible to install would improve over all XP performance.

[Joe S]

I'm running Avast on 2 XP installs. One a VM the other an old Compaq and haven't noticed any speed problems. What I have noticed is false positives when scanning from the crapware that came preloaded by HP. The Compaq is a lowend PC with AMD chip and 1.5 G ram. Most of those XP stock installs really need more ram. On top of that all of the Windows updates slow things down over time.
Joe

[TheScorpion]

As said, it's possible to disable several functions that are not wanted.
What I have found though, is that when Avast is updating its virus definitions my pc freezes for an unacceptable length of time until the process completes.  Older versions, probably prior to V7 and V8 didn't do this.
(I'm running XP with 500MB RAM)
This alone may eventually make me ditch Avast, something I don't want to do. 

.

[bob3160]

As said, it's possible to disable several functions that are not wanted.
What I have found though, is that when Avast is updating its virus definitions my pc freezes for an unacceptable length of time until the process completes.  Older versions, probably prior to V7 and V8 didn't do this.
(I'm running XP with 500MB RAM)
This alone may eventually make me ditch Avast, something I don't want to do. 

.

Time to update (increase) your ram.
Ditching avast! to replace it with something else that uses less resources    Don't think you'll have much luck finding such a program.

[TheScorpion]

Yes, had thought of that but I think my laptop is already max'd out for RAM. In any case, something must have changed with Avast's updating process to cause this problem. Didn't happen with earlier versions. Am going to give AVG a shot and see if I have the same problem. Will post back result.

.

[bobo1]

No speed issues with me on a vintage laptop ibm t22. Has the original post checked the computer for general spyware that will slow down win xp?

Normally Windows xp will slowdown over time as the registry will get bloated as common with all windows operating systems & a re load of windows xp is faster!! i format my computer every 2 years or so to keep the speed as xp will get slower if you add/remove software and junk files will build up over time.

Try and trim down the background procsses. Mine is at 25

[TheScorpion]

As said, it's possible to disable several functions that are not wanted.
What I have found though, is that when Avast is updating its virus definitions my pc freezes for an unacceptable length of time until the process completes.  Older versions, probably prior to V7 and V8 didn't do this.
(I'm running XP with 500MB RAM)
This alone may eventually make me ditch Avast, something I don't want to do. 

.

Time to update (increase) your ram.
Ditching avast! to replace it with something else that uses less resources    Don't think you'll have much luck finding such a program.

Well, I've installed AVG to compare. The pc most definitely slows up when AVG is updating its definitions however it doesn't freeze completely as is the case with Avast and the 'slow up' doesn't last as long as the Avast 'update freeze'.
Will wait for next version of Avast and then give that a try to see if anything changes there.

.

[Lisandro]

Freezing is generally associated with incompatibility with other security program (old antivirus remains, firewall, other antimalware tool, etc.).