Author Topic: Avast Free has left problematic residue in the registry  (Read 1922 times)

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Offline AZBruno

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Avast Free has left problematic residue in the registry
« on: April 24, 2021, 04:30:59 AM »
I was running Avast Free Antivirus. I uninstalled it as I am doing some experimenting with another package. Meanwhile, I'm just running with Windows Defender.

What is left in the registry is the following:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Provider\Av\{8EA8924E-BC81-DC44-8BB0-8BAE75D86EBF}

This references Avast Antivirus. The data in this registry branch can be seen by the following Powershell command

C:\> Get-CimInstance -Namespace root/SecurityCenter2 -ClassName AntivirusProduct

displayName              : Avast Antivirus
instanceGuid             : {8EA8924E-BC81-DC44-8BB0-8BAE75D86EBF}
pathToSignedProductExe   : C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe
pathToSignedReportingExe : C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe
productState             : 266240
timestamp                : Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:57:55 GMT
PSComputerName           :

displayName              : Windows Defender
instanceGuid             : {D68DDC3A-831F-4fae-9E44-DA132C1ACF46}
pathToSignedProductExe   : windowsdefender://
pathToSignedReportingExe : %ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MsMpeng.exe
productState             : 397568
timestamp                : Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:13:45 GMT
PSComputerName           :

Windows Defender has no problem and looking with the Security Center is shows that Windows Defender is the Antivirus provider.

But, I am trying to install Acronis True Image 2021 which contains an Antivirus component and it is complaining that Avast Antivirus must be uninstalled first.

I had completely uninstalled Avast. And after seeing this, I ran the avastclear.exe in Safe Mode but it did not get rid of this.

Normally, I'd just delete the registry entry, but regedit won't let me do it. So now I'm stuck.

Offline AZBruno

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Re: Avast Free has left problematic residue in the registry
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2021, 06:03:31 PM »
The problem seems to be that Avast is registered in WMI as a security provider, but does not unregister when uninstalling.

The solution for me was to run C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wbemtest.exe. Using namespace root\SecurityCenter2 and enumerate instances for AntiVirusProduct, I could find and delete the Avast entry. This solved my problem by allowing the other package to install correctly.

Offline RedFan

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Re: Avast Free has left problematic residue in the registry
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2021, 08:31:36 PM »
Did you also make use of the uninstall tool (avast Clear) ??
After an uninstall use search everything from voidtools and search for leftovers from avast

https://www.voidtools.com/
« Last Edit: April 24, 2021, 08:33:49 PM by RedFan »
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Offline AZBruno

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Re: Avast Free has left problematic residue in the registry
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2021, 02:25:42 AM »
Did you also make use of the uninstall tool (avast Clear) ??
After an uninstall use search everything from voidtools and search for leftovers from avast

https://www.voidtools.com/

Yes, I did run avastclear. I mentioned that in my original post.

Since, I've been able to get rid of the Avast Antivirus association in Microsoft Security Center by running wbemtest.exe.