Newbie Q: avast not protecting my IM, BitComet!

[shockie]

Hi all. I'm just started using avast 4.7 Home Ed, after my Norton AV's subscription ended recently.

Although its virus scanning and fixing abilities are great, I have been struggling with a problem with it. I've noticed that even though it's supposed to protect IM and BitComet, I am not seeing that. I'm using Windows Live Messenger btw.

I've checked in its IM and P2P Shield on avast's On-Access Scanner panel, and both are showing up as being protected. But they're not. When I'm transferring files in both of those programs, avast doesn't scan them.

Help?

Thanks.

[DavidR]

A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT

You can also download SymNRT, a Norton uninstall tool that uninstalls all Norton 2004/2005/2006 products.

[mouniernetwork]

Welcome to the Forums   

May I ask how do you know that avast doesn't scan them ?

Thanks

Al968

[shockie]

Hi guys. Easy, when I send a file through Windows Live Messenger, a message pops up telling me I didn't specify an antivirus scan for the files. I'm then presented with this box where I'm supposed to browse to find a program/file to use to scan that file I'm sending to my friend. Ditto with BitComet.

If I just choose the ashAvast.exe file in Browse, I just make the Avast program start up whenever I wanna transfer a file. I don't want this, I want avast to automatically scan those files for me.

[DavidR]

Assuming that you installed avast! in the default folder, this is the path needed to scan downloads, C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashQuick.exe

[shockie]

Hey guys, thank you all for helping me with this problem. I selected that file, and hey presto, it works now.

Just a friendly suggestion to the Avast team. Can't you make it so that Avast automatically sets itself up to scan files for IMs and such? Many newbies, including myself would have no idea how to set it up and stuff.

Anyway, thanks again for the help.

[DavidR]

It scans files for supported IM applications (provided you don't disable the IM provider) by default.

There is no way to do this if you have an unsupported IM application as you need to manually set the IM settings to scan the file, assuming that it has such a function.

avast! can't know the workings of every IM application and subsequently change its settings and I'm sure if it did there would be many complaints that it changed another programs settings. That for me would be a huge no no, I would probably drop any program that made changes to another applications settings without my knowledge or permission.