Avast settings being moved to registry in 20.7

[NON]

Hi Hried, there is almost same set of keys on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Avast Software\Avast too, is this a mirror or something else?

[bob3160]

I don't know if this question has been asked already (I can't see it).

Q. Can devs confirm avastclear.exe will completely and fully clean out all Avast registry entries including these additional settings when invoked??

The last thing wanted is users potentially corrupting their registries whilst performing a seek and destroy mission for stray Avast items left behind. Particularly if in the process of doing a clean install of AV. That will not benefit either Avast or users.

I raised that question when this decision was first introduced. It's still a work in progress. Right now, the answer is no.

[rocksteady]

I don't know if this question has been asked already (I can't see it).

Q. Can devs confirm avastclear.exe will completely and fully clean out all Avast registry entries including these additional settings when invoked??

The last thing wanted is users potentially corrupting their registries whilst performing a seek and destroy mission for stray Avast items left behind. Particularly if in the process of doing a clean install of AV. That will not benefit either Avast or users.

I raised that question when this decision was first introduced. It's still a work in progress. Right now, the answer is no.

Thanks bob.
Devs need to fix avastclear.exe to work and properly clean up after an Avast install. For me that is a deterrent to update to 20.7.

[DavidR]

<snip quote>
Thanks bob.
Devs need to fix avastclear.exe to work and properly clean up after an Avast install. For me that is a deterrent to update to 20.7.

Since you have knowledge of this and you are aware of its registry locations, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AVAST Software\Avast\properties.
And possibly HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Avast Software\Avast as NON mentioned.

I don't see it as a problem when you consider how frequently you might do a clean reinstall utilising avastclear. I can't recall the exact date I did one of those.  But it was when I reverted to Avast 18.5 from 18.8 on my old XP system, so some considerable time ago.

[Hried]

I don't know if this question has been asked already (I can't see it).

Q. Can devs confirm avastclear.exe will completely and fully clean out all Avast registry entries including these additional settings when invoked??

The last thing wanted is users potentially corrupting their registries whilst performing a seek and destroy mission for stray Avast items left behind. Particularly if in the process of doing a clean install of AV. That will not benefit either Avast or users.

I raised that question when this decision was first introduced. It's still a work in progress. Right now, the answer is no.

Thanks bob.
Devs need to fix avastclear.exe to work and properly clean up after an Avast install. For me that is a deterrent to update to 20.7.

I will try to push this to be done asap. However please note that left-over keys in registry are of no harm to users similarly to left-over files on disk. Registry is a very efficient storage and I would myself never touch any of those 'registry cleaners' promising vaguely defined (and likely unproven) speedups.  But of course leaving anything behind is a bad practice and we'll fix it as soon we can.

[Hried]

Hi Hried, there is almost same set of keys on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Avast Software\Avast too, is this a mirror or something else?

Hi NON, we mirror this so 32-bit components of 64-bit Avast (plugins to Outlook and 32-bit browsers) are able to easily get their settings (this is a key given to 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows) and to support migrations of legacy 32-bit to 64-bit versions. Note that this is not a copy or duplicate; it is a registry symbolic link, a shortcut from this key to the one mentioned above. The values in registry are there only once.

We are going to remove this once we port to a new installer we're making, should be early next year.

[menziller]

It has to be said, anyway, that tampering with an INI text file (related to a single application) is potentially quite less... dangerous than tampering inside the main OS registry...
From a security perspective, pushing users to edit the registry is hardly a good thing, in my humble opinion.

Maybe the INI file could be kept just for those custom settings which are not managed by the GUI.
Most users (those who do not want or need to go beyond the GUI) would take advantage of the performance gain (if any) due to the registry integration, while the "few" others would create a little text file with negligible effect on performance.

Or maybe those custom settings could be written by the user inside a dedicated GUI window, with no need of file (or registry) editing at all...

[spiralmind1]

Hello, this has been driving me nuts for months. I don't quite understand the method to fix this? I don't see a registry setting to change. The one referenced in the screenshot is not in my registry.

Thank you

[mchain]

What avast version are you running?

[spiralmind1]

Windows 10 Pro
 Avast Free 21.3.2459 (build 21.3.6164.657)

[DavidR]

Hello, this has been driving me nuts for months. I don't quite understand the method to fix this? I don't see a registry setting to change. The one referenced in the screenshot is not in my registry.

Thank you

Exactly what is it that is driving you nuts ?
What is it that you are trying to achieve (what are you trying to change, it may be in the Avast Settings and could possibly be changed there) ?

The image is just one sub-section of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AVAST Software\Avast\properties, showing the \settings\Hns element .
I can only assume as you are using windows10 Pro that it is 64bit, I have windows10 Home 64bit and this registry key in the image is present.

[spiralmind1]

Exactly what is it that is driving you nuts ?
What is it that you are trying to achieve (what are you trying to change, it may be in the Avast Settings and could possibly be changed there) ?

The image is just one sub-section of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AVAST Software\Avast\properties, showing the \settings\Hns element .
I can only assume as you are using windows10 Pro that it is 64bit, I have windows10 Home 64bit and this registry key in the image is present.

Yes, 64 bit Windows. I did not know there was a 32-bit pro version, sorry. I have many email addresses and use three programs to monitor them. I cannot more than two email programs without getting the connection error. Perhaps I do not understand why there is a limit in the first place. But if this limit can be increased to avoid this issue I am trying to find where to change it. It appears to be coming from Avast not being able to deal with this many email accounts being checked simultaneously. If the limit is just a problem that cannot be overcome with a setting I would like to understand that. I found these threads and don't see a solution even though it says solved. Thanks for asking.

[DavidR]

<snip quote>
Yes, 64 bit Windows. I did not know there was a 32-bit pro version, sorry. I have many email addresses and use three programs to monitor them.

I cannot more than two email programs without getting the connection error. Perhaps I do not understand why there is a limit in the first place. But if this limit can be increased to avoid this issue I am trying to find where to change it.

It appears to be coming from Avast not being able to deal with this many email accounts being checked simultaneously. If the limit is just a problem that cannot be overcome with a setting I would like to understand that. I found these threads and don't see a solution even though it says solved. Thanks for asking.

The connection error isn't so much because you have many email addresses but the number of connections they create in order to collect all at once.

It sounds like you are hitting the Maximum Concurrent Connections limit (but you don't specifically say this), which is set at 50 (or used to be).  This could previously set to a figure of say 100 and see if that worked or set to 0 (zero), no limit.  I screenshot of the actual error could have been helpful, to see exactly what you are bumping into and the cause/process grabbing al of the connections.

As an avast user I can't answer why there is a limit in the first place, possibly an attack vector swamping your system, I don't know.

This is possibly off-topic for this particular topic, but unfortunately I don't know where this setting is tucked away in the new registry setup for Avast Settings.

[spiralmind1]

Hopefully, someone can post how to change the limit.

[spiralmind1]

I am going to turn off the inbound and outbound scanning and see what happens. Not sure it's really important these days anyway? Wouldn't the real-time scanner find these threats too? Until someone can figure out where this setting is I don't know any other solution.