Avast5-8 Won't Update in Win2K

[Diehard Win98]

Avast5 thru 8 will no longer do incremental virus updates in Win2K.  When avastemupdate periodically runs its child process, I get an error ‘getnumahighestnodenumber not found in dll library for kernel32’. 

After this happens the only way to do a virus definition update is to do a fresh Avast install and go directly to online update.  This takes lots of time given the database is over 200Mb now.  Using vpsupd doesn’t work.

I found that the ‘getnuma…kernel32’ function is only for WinXP or higher.

It is my understanding that virus updates are still available, although no more program updates are available for Avast5-8

How do I alert the technical staff at Avast of this bug?

[Pondus]

How do I alert the technical staff at Avast of this bug?

If it is a bug, i doubt this is something they will use any time and  recourse on

[Asyn]

Hi, we've some users with W2K in the German section, they didn't report any problems (yet).

[Diehard Win98]

Those other Win2K users must be using straight Win2KSP4?

My Win2K builds all have the unofficial SP5.1 installed.  Up until now this has been bug free, and it's been over 5 years.

I was able to get one build to update incrementally online, but it takes much longer than it used to.  And if I use vpsupd, it reports the Avast4 installation is broken.  How does that make sense?

When Avast won't update the updating information reports the last attempted update was 12/31/1969.  It also reports the latest update is 00-00-00.  This also makes no sense.  It correctly shows the date of the installed database. And all the components work OK. 

Go figure ....

[Asyn]

Those other Win2K users must be using straight Win2KSP4?

Confirmed.

[Diehard Win98]

If other users are having success with straight Win2KSP4, I'll have to create a build to see.

Unofficial SP5.1 can't be un-installed easily.  So I have to create a SP4 build from scratch.  I don't use VMware. This will take a bit of time.

If it works, then the culprit is in the SP5.1 kernel32.dll extensions.  I'll have to figure out a way to revert to the SP4 kernel32.dll for updates, then back to the SP5.1 kernel32 for some of my apps to continue working. 

Or, if avastemupdate.exe doesn't do any registry changes, I can probably copy the \def and \setup files from the SP4 build to the SP5.1 build.  If there are registry changes, it'll be hard to trace them, so this method would fail.  Actually, copying files has worked in the past, until about 9/18.   

I surely wish I knew exactly what avastemupdate.exe does.

Life is getting tougher ...

[Diehard Win98]

Avast5 (and likely Avast7 & will NOT install on a straight Win2KSP4 build. The Avast5.1.889 setup reports it needs KB816542.  But Microsoft says it deleted KB816542.

My solution was to install MS UpdateRollup1, the last official update for Win2K.  Avast5.1 then installed OK on this SP4R1 build (built from scratch).

While online database updating seems to work OK, vpsupd doesn't work.  I get the same  'Avast4 installation is broken' message as with my SP5.1 builds.  This is not hardware related,  as the message is the same on two different machines.

Asyn, please ask your Win2K users if they have tried vpsupd lately.

As for Avastemupdate.exe:  On the SP4R1 build it runs periodically, downloads something, then quickly exits.  No child process is run, so I don't get the 'Getnumahighestnodenumber' error (yet?).  These child processes are likely what corrupted my SP5.1 builds so they then stopped updating correctly.  If after a while, if emupdate continues to basically do nothing, I may just block it from executing on my SP5.1 builds.  The firewall I use allows this.

I still think that the Tech guys at Avast need to be alerted to this bug. 

[Asyn]

Asyn, please ask your Win2K users if they have tried vpsupd lately.

No issues, but they use Avast V8.0.1497, hope this helps.

[Diehard Win98]

OK, I'll try to install Avast8 on my SP4R1 build.

But, I seem to recall that registration is difficult with Avast8.  You can't insert a license key, and you can't get one online.

Registration is problematic with these older Avast versions.  Unlike Avasrt4.8, when the license expires everything shuts down.

My Win2K machines are slow. Newer versions are more taxing on the resources.  That's why I was trying to stick with Avast5.  You can't get Win2K drivers for faster machines.

[DavidR]

See -  Problems registering old version of avast, see https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=217344.msg1463654#msg1463654 and try the key there.

<snip>
Here is the correct key: W11332244H9900A0420-8MRTR8W5

And please in future if any user wants to register some prehistoric version, feel free to use this key.

So give it a try.

[Diehard Win98]

Thanks, DavidR, for the valuable license key.

I was able to install Avast7.0.1474 on my SP4R1 and SP5.1 builds.  Both vpsupd and online updating work with this version. I guess I have to say goodbye to Avast5.1. 

I did use my firewall to block Avastemupdate.  So far, everything still is OK.  My understanding is the emergency update mechanism is there in case a nasty virus disables Avast.  So at boot time it performs a fix.   Anyway, that's what I gleaned from reading the forum posts.

If Avast7 stops working, I'll count on a fresh install to  cure the bug 

By the way, I never mentioned Avast6.  I found this is uninstallable because the setup immediately downloads a later version. Even with Avast7, the opening screen gives you a choice to install a later version instead.

[DavidR]

Thanks, DavidR, for the valuable license key.
<snip>
I did use my firewall to block Avastemupdate.  So far, everything still is OK. 

My understanding is the emergency update mechanism is there in case a nasty virus disables Avast.  So at boot time it performs a fix.   Anyway, that's what I gleaned from reading the forum posts.

If Avast7 stops working, I'll count on a fresh install to  cure the bug 
<snip>

You're welcome.

The Avastemupdate.exe isn't in case of a nasty virus as such, but to resolve an internal program issue, that otherwise couldn't be resolved by a regular VPS update.  Such as the actual VPS update function is broken, which couldn't resolve itself. 

There may well be other instances that I'm unaware of, but these I fear on a very old version such as  Avast 7 may not be valid.  Old versions don't receive program updates once they are no longer supported, so in the instance of vulnerability being closed, it probably wouldn't be applied to unsupported versions.

[Diehard Win98]

Epilog:

Avast5.1 is not a lost cause after all. 

The reason vpsupd on Avast5.1 wouldn’t work is Avast5.1 uses the -379 (hex for 889 as in 5.1.889) dataset files.  But Avast7.0, Avast8.0, and probably Avast9.0 use the -5e2 (1506 as in 8.0.1506) dataset files.  Vpsupd only works on -5e2 files.  These files are in the \setup folder.  The files in the \defs folder are the same for Avast5 through 8 and are the actual virus definitions that the program uses.

Replace ‘setup_ais-379.vpx’ from the Avast5.1 \setup with ‘setup_ais-5e2.vpx’ from the Avast7.0 or 8.0 \setup.  (You’ll have to disable self defense first).  Then run an online update:  The update does the conversion, and creates some registry entries.   From then on, vpsupd works OK!  This update also replaces ‘setup.ovr’ with the Avast8.0 version, but everything still works OK:  A purist might put the Avast5.1 version back in (that works OK too).

After this hack, ‘avastemupdate’ no longer produces an error message.  The version for this file is the same for Avast5.1 and 7.0 (8.0.1497.379), but different for Avast8.0

I tried doing online updates for many days after a fresh Avast5.1 install to see if it mended itself, but it kept on using the -379 dataset files.  My prior Avast5.1 builds somehow got the -5e2 files, but lacked the registry entries:  I guess that’s why they stopped updating both online and with vpsupd.

I’ve said all along, the reason I wanted to stick with Avast5.1 is later versions are more taxing on OS resources.