The other blue icon ball

[megaman04]

I just downloaded the free home edition on my computer.  Two blue spherical icons appear on the taskbar.  The "a" icon rotates, the other doesn't.  As I downloaded the spybot-search & destroy software, a recurring message periodically appeared above the non-rotating blue ball.  The message said something like this, "DCOM threat was blocked" and a URL was diplayed.  I restarted the computer and now the non-rotating blue icon is gone; the rotating "a" icon is still in the taskbar.

How do I retrieve the missing blue sphere?

My PC runs on Windows XP.  Thanks for the help, Megaman.

[Lisandro]

The 'a' blue icon is ashdisp.exe and is the system tray icon for the avast resident protection. It rotates when anything is being scanned.
The 'i' blue icon is the VRDB (virus recovery database). It could be merged with the 'a' one. It does not rotate but 'flashes'... I don't know how to express in English that behavior, when it is creating the recovery database.

For the 'i' icon (VRDB): http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=14356.msg121337#msg121337
Check your avast4.ini file settings. Click 'Settings' in my signature and browse for the VRDB section.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=1647.msg10271#msg10271
[VRDB]
MergeIcons   =0
Disabled=0
ShowTaskbarIcon=1

[megaman04]

The strange thing is that when I turned on my computer today, the "i" ball icon was back in the taskbar.  I didn't do anything so I don't know  what happened.  Thanks for your explanattion Tech.

Two things:

1.  I didn't know how to check my avast4.ini file to get to the "settings" in my signature.  I know it's a moot point since the icon reappeared, but maybe for future problems I'll know how to access the settings.

2.  Is it recommended to merge the "i" icon with the "a" icon?

Thanks, Megaman

[megaman04]

Also, I forgot to mention that when I right-clicked the "i" icon,  "generate VRDB only when screen-saver is running" was already selected as a default.  There's another option, " generate VRDB when computer is idle."  I do see the "merge with main avast icon" option.  Mega