Remove Systemtray Animation or Icon all together

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We are starting to deploy Avast for Business to our users.  Many users are complaining there system is slowing down because the "A" icon is spinning.  It's just an illusion and making the users think it's slowing their computer down. 

Is there a way we can remove the animation (prefered) or just remove the icon all together.  I don't want to touch each PC and the web interface does not allow us to do this. 

Is there a way to do this via registry and we can push this as a GPO. 

Thank you

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Sorry, I can't access a machine to be sure right now, but I seem to remember the new v11.1.2510 having the option to change the tray animation and it is now off by default?  Have you updated to the new client?  I could be wrong 

There's no cloud setting, so you should be able to turn it off via other means.

One trick I did was to customize the system tray icons to show notifications only.

Again sorry I don't have a machine handy to add more detail for now.

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Yes, all our clients are up to date.  I even tried to have a GPO to modify the avast5.ini but it keeps failing because avast keeps it open. (hence locking the file).  I wish they could add this feature to the web interface (cloud).  Users are picky about things.

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I ran a test in a VM and see what you are saying.  Animate is still on by default

The C:\ProgramData\AVAST Software\Avast\avast5.ini is probably protected by self-defense.  For me it prompts with a dialog (see attached) but also had to open notepad with elevated privilege to save.  I hope that helps in some way to update AnimateIcon=0

I'm sure in time the cloud option will come.  I guess in the meantime some options are to educate users how to change the setting themselves if they are allowed, or to accept the prompt if you get it working (I think you might need to deploy a .ini change after the desktop started up to get the Avast prompt, maybe GPO method does not wait and logon script would work better).  Avast support might be able to help with a missing prompt.

Avast is security software, and trying to manipulate it with 3rd party is gonna be challenging.  You might be better off just trying to bury the tray icon or all of the notification tray by finding a means to do this in GPO. Or for a small group of users, educating them how to customize the notification area themselves (and teaching a new desktop skill can often get them more on-side).

Best of luck!