Desktop just freezes on booting (seems a conflict with Firewall)

[NeoPrince]

Hello Everyone,

I have been using Avast Home Edition since few months and it was working quite fine until recently. There has not been much change in the system apart from the regular Avast updates. I know this is a problem caused by Avast, as I have spent a lot of time tracing the problem, which I am elaborating below.

System Specs:
     Intel Celeron 1.1Ghz
     Windows 2000 Professional,
     Service Pack 4
     IE 6     
     Comodo Firewall Pro (CFP) V 2.4.16.174 - Database V 2.0

Problem: Booting takes too long with Avast Home Edition installed. The desktop shows up eventually, but it's just unusable as nothing works. Moving the mouse pointer over the taskbar shows the hour glass endlessly. Seems like a conflict with Firewall.

Troubleshooting I did:

# My initial doubt was with CFP. So disabled the cmdagent.exe (COMODO Firewall Pro Application Agent). Left Avast as it is. Rebooted.
= System boots normally

# So I assume it is CFP that is causing trouble. So I uninstalled CFP. Rebooted.
= Normal booting again

# I installed PCTools Firewall. Avast remains as it is. Rebooted.
= Same problem recurs. System freezes after displaying the desktop. Moving the mouse pointer shows on taskbar shows hourglass infinitely.

# I uninstalled Avast. Installed AVG. Kept PCTools as it is. Rebooted.
= Normal booting.

# Since I prefer comodo, I uninstalled PCTools. Installed CFP again. AVG remains. Rebooted.
= Normal booting.

Also with these steps I carefully carried out a couple of registry cleanings for the uninstalled application.

It seems Avast conflicts with the firewalls and this MAY have caused because of the recent updates, though I am not sure.

I want to get back to Avast again, as I find it very decent application.

I would appreciate if experts can guide/help with the issue.

P.S: I also noticed after uninstalling Avast, it leaves back few entries in the registry. I am attaching a snapshot of RegSeeker.

Cheers!!

[Lisandro]

It seems Avast conflicts with the firewalls and this MAY have caused because of the recent updates, though I am not sure.

I'm having troubles with Comodo v3, avast and Vista... but I did not think (yet) that it could be a conflict with avast...

P.S: I also noticed after uninstalling Avast, it leaves back few entries in the registry. I am attaching a snapshot of RegSeeker.

Only keys on 'CurrentControlSet' are active and removed.
ControlSet00x are backup ones.

[igor]

I'd say the conflict may be caused by any of the security programs you installed

Anyway, a full dump might tell us more about the problem; a description how to generate it is here:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22636.msg187340#msg187340

[NeoPrince]

Thanks for the feed Tech & Igor.

I will try to install avast again & check the log. Will try to get the Dump too.

Thanks

[sanctuary24]

Someone on the Comodo forums said V3 has an issue with Avast that is being looked into, I dont know whether someone on the Alwil team knows about this

[Damage Inc]

I wonder if the new avast update (4.7.1087) will fix this problem. I was forced to uninstall avast home from my computer because I dont like vista firewall and za and im not willing to pay for firewall...

But as soon as this problem is fix, I´ll instal avast again.

[NeoPrince]

Update

# I removed AVG. CFP remains. Installed Avast 4.7 Home custom setup, excluding Outlook/Exchange service as I don't find its use.
 
# boot time scanning disabled.

=The result is normal booting. I restarted the system couple of times and everything seems perfect. Avast & CFP co-exist.

What I noticed

When I connected to internet, as usual Avast alerted me of the latest database availability & flashed a message that I am using older version i.e 000737-2. But I DID NOT UPDATE just to check. Everything seems ok. So could it be the database update that is causing the trouble???