Some Major Problems with avast!... Please Help.

[solomon6777]

I know the story is a bit long but please read it through as I might think all this may help in solving the problem.

I have several problems regarding with the trial version of avast! Anti-virus Professional Edition. I wanted to try this anti-virus after using NOD32 for a while along with ZoneAlarm 6.0 Pro (originally using Sygate Personal Firewall).

I reformated my hard drive, re-installed Windows+drivers with the recovery CD and started with a fresh system to try these awesome products (after seeing many, many reviews).

I uninstalled Norton that came with the reformat and installed avast!. Got internet connection up and the update wouldn't work. My current version of avast! Anti-virus Professional Edition is 4.6.731 (build: Nov2005) while the VPS is stuck at 2005-11-11 (0545-2). The Windows Security Center does indeed detect avast! but needing update (which bugs me a lot). More specifically, these are the versions for each component I have on avast!

Current version:
 - program: 4.6.731
 - vps: 0545-2
 - news: 4.6.68
 - setup: 4.6.731

Latest version available:
 - program: <unknown>
 - vps: <unknown>
 - news: <unknown>
 - setup: <unknown>
Publishing date: <unknown>

Then when I click "Next" for the update, I get this error:

"There was an error changing the product configuration"...

After that, I click "Finish" and avast! setup program crashes.

So what's happening?

Then I decided to install ZoneAlarm Pro meeting a fatal error from avast! that it is incompatible with ZA Pro. So I decided to turn off the Privacy protection thing of ZA while keeping avast!'s one (as it was suggested how it will work together).

Seems like I made a mistake after seeing how my computer restarted after opening IE to get help with this error.

The updates still don't work or ZAPro working with avast! so far...

I'd really appreciate some help or you can tell me to stick with NOD32 and Sygate Personal Firewall

[solomon6777]

OH btw, I use a Korean Windows XP Home Edition SP-2.

Pleeeeeeaaase help.

[solomon6777]

I won't install ANYTHING unless I have some safety measures installed...

Please reply 

[Damian]

I use ZA as well. Have you made sure that Avast! has is allowed to connect to the Internet? Double click the ZA icon, go to Program Control tab, then the Programs tab at the top, and make sure any program that starts with Avast has a tick next to it, for the time being. If this works, then u can try to establish which exact program is updating (if your like me and dont want EVERYTHING allowed to the Internet )

[solomon6777]

Well, yeah that's what I used to do with ZAPro... except avast! doesn't work with ZAPro turned on so I have it off anyhow and uninstalled it for now.

Update still doesn't work.

[Damian]

Maybe its just that the install is corrupted or something. Download the latest version again, go offline, uninstall Avast!, restart, install the new download, go on the net and see if it works.

Btw Im not one of the staff or anything. Im just a Avast! enthusiast who has been using it for a long time and just trying to help ppl out

[solomon6777]

OH cool that's good to know ^_^

I've tried all that... download lastest version, go offline, uninstall avast!, restart, install the newly downloaded installation file, and then tried to update...

Maybe I'll try reformating AGAIN and see if it works this time...

I hope I get a lot more replies by the time I'm finish...

(Thanks for helping though)

[lukor]

Hello, buggy ZoneAlarm driver is evergreen here, so I hope you don't mind the repost (excuses for those with the knowledge of the famous "Search button")

If you use ZoneAlarm 6 and suffer from memory corruption related blue screens occurring during browsing (WebShield and possibly other applications) you are probably hit by their latest critical bug in the driver.

We already have a patched copy of Zone Alarm driver that solves it but we are not allowed to distribute it to the wide public. If you will send to my email or to Vlk some of your minidumps (memory dumps created during blue screen crashes - should be store in c:\windows\minidump\*.dmp) we might provide you with the updated copy of the ZoneAlarm driver and instructions how to replace it.

We also encourage you to address this issue to ZoneAlarm support, maybe that might shorten the time they are waiting with the official release.

Please email me in the case you are interrested in the fix or please post some "Major problem in firewall" threads to the ZoneAlarm forum. Both are welcome.
Cheers.
Lukas.

PS.: more info about the cooperation with ZoneAlarm may be obtain by entering the ZoneAlarm keyword into the search box.

Eg.:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=17471.msg148606
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=17292.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=16199.0

[Spiritsongs]

  How THROUGH did you "remove" Norton from your system ?
    In addition to "uninstalling" it, did you also use your
    computer's "Search" feature to delete all its files & folders ?
    AND you a SAFE Registry Cleaner to remove "left-over"
    entries there ?
    I have heard that NOD 32 is one of the best !? Why did
    you not continue with it ?

[solomon6777]

Hello, buggy ZoneAlarm driver is evergreen here, so I hope you don't mind the repost (excuses for those with the knowledge of the famous "Search button")

I did look through the forums and actually used that button with the magnifying glass button to seach out my problems before registering.

When I COULDN'T find a fix that address my problems, I registered which I found so easy to do (surprisingly... no E-mail verfication, etc.)

I'm really sorry I didn't look "that" throroghly enough to find that post about memory dump and fix with the buggy ZoneAlarm stuff... Now that I know, thanks a lot!!! 

I'm not that good of a techie guy to find this mem dump and anyways, I don't get that blue screen of death or anything THAT serious... just a crash and restart which never happened to me before.

Thanks a lot for re-posting it here lukor. I think I'll wait for ZoneAlarm to release their patch...

[solomon6777]

How THROUGH did you "remove" Norton from your system ?
    In addition to "uninstalling" it, did you also use your
    computer's "Search" feature to delete all its files & folders ?
    AND you a SAFE Registry Cleaner to remove "left-over"
    entries there ?
    I have heard that NOD 32 is one of the best !? Why did
    you not continue with it ?

Well, I haven't gone through all that but I thought I heard Norton uninstaller does a pretty good job at uninstalling itself anyways... so never checked... I just uninstalled those other apps "LiveReg" and "LiveUpdate" things...
I'll go through a registry with Registry Mechanic 

Is NOD32 really the best? I've heard the Microsoft company uses it but the reviews from numerous sites give it thumbs down... Surprising to hear from an avast! user to say "NOD 32 is one of the best" around here... 

[lukor]

I'm not that good of a techie guy to find this mem dump and anyways, I don't get that blue screen of death or anything THAT serious... just a crash and restart which never happened to me before.

I am afraid "crash and restart" that's what we call a BLUE SCREEN  If you visit the Control Panel / System / Advanced / Startup and Recovery Settings you'll see the "Automatically restart" checkbox. With this you can control if the BSOD will be shown or if the computer will be just restarted. Anyway the crash info should be written into your event log, minidump should be stored in C:\WINDOWS\Minidump folder. I don't recommend running any driver that causes system crashes and that includes unpatched ZoneAlarm's vsdatant.sys.