Why do i have to restart my machine so often?

[Efrieum]

Every time I update Avast home on my Compaq it gives me the prompt Avast needs to restart your operating system.  This does not occur on my Dell.  I am running Win Xp Sp 2 on both and both have the exact same updates.  What setting do I have to change to get it to automatically update instead of restarting each time?

Thanks.

[TedNelly]

Here are a couple of links that may help this has something to do with the 8.3 short file naming conversion tweak (short file names (8+3)
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28102.msg229764#msg229764
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=28199.0

[Efrieum]

Thank you sir.  Will do when I get home.

[Efrieum]

I deleted the file but it says download and run this file.  There is nothing to download and I tried running it but it says no. I can find where in the registry this is but I don't often edit the registry and I don't want to jack my whole computer up by doing something incorrect.  How exactly do I fix this?

[TedNelly]

Please read links supplied carefuly. I had this problem and changing the 8.3 naming convention solved this issue for me. There is a reg fix supplied in one of the links that does not require you entering the Registry. please try this first
Forejt

Did you disable creating of short file names (8+3) by some tool?

Download this registry fix and run it to enable short file names again:
http://public.avast.com/~forejt/Enable8dot3Name.reg

Then start program update and restart afterwards.

Save the link as .reg file (Enable8dot3Name.reg) save to somewhere easily found/double click and select merge/Reboot

Good luck

[DavidR]

I deleted the file but it says download and run this file.  There is nothing to download and I tried running it but it says no. I can find where in the registry this is but I don't often edit the registry and I don't want to jack my whole computer up by doing something incorrect.  How exactly do I fix this?

What version of avast do you have ?
The latest 4.7.1029 is supposed to resolve this problem, if you have a different one try a manual program update.

If you have got that it may be worth doing a clean reinstall.
Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

Now uninstall, reboot, run the Uninstall Utility, reboot, install the latest version, reboot.