Cannot start On-Access Protection

[ta2me92704]

Install seemed to go OK, but there is a small red bang on the "A" tray icon, and right click, selecting "start on-access protection" does nothing.

I repaired program, nothing. I removed program, nothing.

Help?

[Eddy]

What OS?
What EXACT version of avast?
Did you or do you have another av installed?

[ta2me92704]

Win98SE

Avast 4.7 home

Build Aug2006  4.7.871

Xtreme toolkit 1.9.4.0

Activeskin 4.2.7.3


Previously had McAfee

[Eddy]

Did you remove McACrap completely before installing avast?

How do I Uninstall SecurityCenter?

Summary: This article provides the steps to remove SecurityCenter from your computer.

Note: Before uninstalling SecurityCenter, you must uninstall VirusScan, Personal Firewall, Privacy Service, and SpamKiller.

   1. Click on the Start button.
   2. Point to Settings (XP users skip this step).
   3. Click on Control Panel.
   4. Double click Add or Remove Programs.
   5. Locate McAfee SecurityCenter in the list of installed programs.
   6. Single click on SecurityCenter so that it is highlighted.
   7. Click the Add/Remove or Change/Remove button.
   8. Follow the prompts to remove SecurityCenter.
   9. Restart your computer.

McAfee SecurityCenter has been removed from your computer.

If for some reason, you have removed all of your other McAfee programs and SecurityCenter will still not uninstall, do the following:

   1. Double-click on My Computer (on some XP systems, click Start → My Computer).
   2. Double-click on drive C:
   3. Double-click on the Program Files folder
   4. Double-click on the mcafee.com folder
   5. Double-click on the agent folder
   6. Double-click on the app folder
   7. Delete any files that end with .adf by right-clicking the file and selecting Delete
   8. Use the Control Panel to remove SecurityCenter, as listed above.

[ta2me92704]

I used the windows uninstaller.

In "programs" I find 3 Mcafee folders, but no .adf files .

[Eddy]

Ok.

- delete the folders
- delete avast
- reboot
- run the avast uninstaller (see downloads on avast's website)
- reboot
- run CCleaner and CleanUp! (both can easily be found with google and are freeware)
- reboot
- install avast

Let us know if this solved it or not.
Please pay attention while doing this and write down (or something) everything unusual that you see experience while doing this. And ofcourse let us know if you think you saw/experienced something strange.

[Marc57]

Mcafee has a uninstall tool that might help.

http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/VSCleanupTool.exe

[Lisandro]

To remove McAfee you need to do via Add/Remove and then the manual removal of the registry keys left behind with their on-line instructions.

They've released VSCleanupTool to do that either, just go to http://www.us.mcafee.com and click the Tech Support tab (provide your version number in Step 1 and select install/uninstall in Step 2). You can go to their user forum at http://www.forums.mcafeehelp.com if you should have problems or questions.
Check http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=20560.msg172602#msg172602 also.

You can find many free versions of these registry cleaners here: http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwregtools.html

[patfrompagosa]

After initial installation of Avast free home edition on August 15, I also experienced the "A ball with red circle and backslash" and also could not start the resident.  I'm doing this on my venerable IBM Thinkpad 765L, using as an operating system, Windows 98SE with all updates.

I read up on the problem here in the forum, and did my best to clean out after uninstalling McAfee, uninstalled Spybot, uninstalled Avast.  I then installed the latest Avast on Aug 17th.  Still had the same problem.

So, I uninstalled Avast again.  But this time, I installed Avast Version 4.7.844 from the www.filehippo.com site.   I configured to use manual updates, did my initial scan, and shut down. 

I restarted and presto, no problem with the resident and no problem with the "A ball with red circle and backslash".  Now I have to see how things go on reloading Spybot, ONLY downloading the virus database periodically, and figure out how to survive with no AVAST program updates.

[Lisandro]

So, I uninstalled Avast again.  But this time, I installed Avast Version 4.7.844 from the www.filehippo.com site.

@ programmers...
Something is ocurring with the last version at Windows 98...
This is not the only case: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22686.0

Igor, can you take a look?