3 curious questions if someone knows the answers. Thanks

[graak]

Hello,
       I have a windows XP pro machine that works fine. I am using the latest Avast free home edition with a full copy of Spyware Doctor Anti Spyware. (Note: No AV with Spyware Doctor, Spyware Doctor with just Anti Spyware only). Everything seams to work fine. Just wanted to get some setting tips to maybe speed things up.

1) Maybe this issue is unrelated, and windows loads fine. But during the boot process, my screen does go blank for a second with no HDD activity. Maybe like for 30 seconds and then loads fine. Again no big deal and everything works, just scares me for a second lol. I don't think this was an issue before Avast was installed. I am not using any Asus products so it is not an Asus issue as some people have reported, and I do not have any preboot scan enabled. Just curious if people have expirienced this and if this is Avast related possibly?

2) My applications take definitely longer to load now than before Avast was installed. Once an application is loaded all is fine. Except when I use the open dialog to open a file like in windows media player, it takes a moment for that dialog to come up and to start browsing and opening folders and files. This only happened once I installed Avast. Again no big error or deal. Just want to know of there is a way to speed these things up?

3) I don't have allot starting up when windows starts but I do have a few minor things. Like the temp monitoring tool for my motherboard and like the tool for my UPS and the volume control for my sound card and a few other things. Not sure if this is an Avast issue or spyware Doctor issue, but I am thinking Avast. Other than the Spyware Doctor icon, Avast Icon, and my network connected icon for my lan, no other icons show up any more in the system tray. I know the apps are still running in the background but no icons. Sometimes I reboot and they show and if for some reason I have to restart explorer.exe sometimes they show up. There was no issue if I recall correctly before I installed Avast. Any idea what could be causing this? Any settings in Avast I can tweak for this?

Again my computer works fine and I think for a free AV product, I think Avast is great and I would recommend the home free version for someone who wants a free AV stand alone product. But these 3 issues are bugging me a bit.

Any body have any idea as to what could cause these issues with Avast specifically assuming it is Avast and not something else, and if it is a Avast issue, anybody know how to tweak Avast home free version settings so that I can fix these issues without loosing any protection?

Thanks for whomever answers.

[psw]

3. In 'Taskbar and Start Menu Properties' dialog what is the state of 'Hide inactive icons' checkbox: checked or not? And in 'Customize' dialog what is the behaviour of problem items?

[Lisandro]

1) Maybe this issue is unrelated, and windows loads fine. But during the boot process, my screen does go blank for a second with no HDD activity. Maybe like for 30 seconds and then loads fine. Again no big deal and everything works, just scares me for a second lol. I don't think this was an issue before Avast was installed. I am not using any Asus products so it is not an Asus issue as some people have reported, and I do not have any preboot scan enabled. Just curious if people have expirienced this and if this is Avast related possibly?

In Troubleshooting tab of settings, if you check to delay avast services load, will it help?

2) My applications take definitely longer to load now than before Avast was installed. Once an application is loaded all is fine. Except when I use the open dialog to open a file like in windows media player, it takes a moment for that dialog to come up and to start browsing and opening folders and files. This only happened once I installed Avast. Again no big error or deal. Just want to know of there is a way to speed these things up?

Did you have any other antivirus before avast?
Which is your Standard Shield sensitivity level? High or Normal?

3) I don't have allot starting up when windows starts but I do have a few minor things. Like the temp monitoring tool for my motherboard and like the tool for my UPS and the volume control for my sound card and a few other things. Not sure if this is an Avast issue or spyware Doctor issue, but I am thinking Avast. Other than the Spyware Doctor icon, Avast Icon, and my network connected icon for my lan, no other icons show up any more in the system tray. I know the apps are still running in the background but no icons. Sometimes I reboot and they show and if for some reason I have to restart explorer.exe sometimes they show up. There was no issue if I recall correctly before I installed Avast. Any idea what could be causing this? Any settings in Avast I can tweak for this?

Something (hardware or two softwares) could be in conflict.
In System > Hardware devices, is there anything marked with a ? mark?

[graak]

To answers every bodies questions in order.

1) I have my icons set to hide interactive icons only. For example just now explorer.exe was restarted and some of the icons (not all) showed up again.

2) I already have delay avast service load set. I have had that turned on since day one. Otherwise it was much worse.

3) Standard Shield is set to custom. File on open scan is disabled because the issue I am describing would be much worse. what in some cases took like 5 seconds to open took like 30 seconds or more or even 60 seconds or so. Even just opening an open box within an application. Ridiculous. Now it is not as bad as, but bad enough.

4) I had Trend Micro 2007 Stand Alone AV but that is way gone before I even installed Avast or Spyware Doctor for that matter. My subscription was up anyways. I was using Trend with stand alone Spy Sweeper again also uninstalled way before I even installed Spyware Doctor stand alone or Avast.

5) My device manager is 100% and has been forever since I built this PC years ago. no ? listed at all.

Any other suggestions? Much would be appreciated. If I need to switch to a different AV/AS I may do atht but I don't really want to as this is already set up but the slowness is killing me.

Thanks for whomever replies.

[Lisandro]

If I need to switch to a different AV/AS I may do atht but I don't really want to as this is already set up but the slowness is killing me.

Is SpywareDoctor protection on?
You can also try to disable the created/modified file to be scanned into Standard Shield settings and see what you get.

[graak]

That is allot of files. I mean to type in files manually would be a big undertaking and would take days. Because it is every file and every open dialog box. I can try disabling spyware doctor and see if that is the issue but I believe I tried that and I don't think that was it. In fact I did not had Spyware Doctor installed and it still did what it is doing now.

So any other ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Lisandro]

I mean to type in files manually would be a big undertaking and would take days. Because it is every file and every open dialog box.

Are you trying to add them to the Exclusion lists?
1st: Why?
2nd: You can use wildcards * and ?

[graak]

The reason why I was talking about adding programs manually was this. Because wouldn't *.exe or whatever defeat the purpose of me having avast in the 1st place? I mean I am not complaining that the program scans things while opening them, that is what an AV/AS should do to make sure 1) that they are legit especially if the program opens on it's own as in automatic startup etc., or 2) that if the program is legit, that no parasite or whatever grabbed itself on to the program. I am just talking about the speed of how Avast does it. and the other things mentioned initially. Avast I am sure you want scanning applications when loading, you just don't want to wait 30 seconds while the open dialog box resets while Avast is being a bit slow. That is just my opinion. Oh and if doing what you suggest with the *.exe or whatever won't make Avast less effective as I thought it would then I will try it.

Any other suggestions or any thoughts on my comments?

[alanrf]

Your recollection and mine differ on one item in the thread. 

I recall the icon issue (after a restart of explorer.exe) always being an issue since I started to used WinXP Pro (and on multiple systems) and before I ever used avast.  Since an explorer failure is a fairly rare event I have never considered it a real issue for me. However your comments prompted me to take a look and see what is happening.

What I find is that:

1) when explorer is terminated and restarted then the icons that are missing from the tray are those functions initiated by "Current User Run" entries in the registry (even though the functions are still running).  The icons for functions initiated from "All Users Run" persist.  Since the Windows session is not itself going through a restart and the functions just continue to run (rather than being started again) this does not surprise me.

2) this condition is identical on my systems whether avast is installed on the system or not.

Can you give us a little more information about your system?  Processor speed and memory for instance?  I find some of the times you give for application start puzzling.  I do not see these conditions even on my 8 year Dell (1GHz processor with 512Mb) also running WinXP Pro SP2.

     

[Lisandro]

The reason why I was talking about adding programs manually was this. Because wouldn't *.exe or whatever defeat the purpose of me having avast in the 1st place?

Running exe (and other executables) will be covered by the first tab of avast settings.
Other files on open can be (with some security) disabled in other tab of settings.

whatever grabbed itself on to the program. I am just talking about the speed of how Avast does it.

It will need MD5 checkings what will take more time even then scanning itself.

[graak]

Hello,
       I am running XP and that is obviously a Vista picture. No matter. So what you saying is have all the check boxes in the basic tab checked, but in the advanced tab, have it unchecked? Just make sure I read the images right and keep all other settings as they are, that would make things faster and not diminish security or threat protection or Virus protection at all? I just want to make sure. I will try exactly how your picture has it, however, please reply just so I can make sure. Thanks again for whoever replies.

[Lisandro]

I am running XP and that is obviously a Vista picture.

Do you mean mine pictures? Of course not, they're from avast regardless the OS.

So what you saying is have all the check boxes in the basic tab checked, but in the advanced tab, have it unchecked? Just make sure I read the images right and keep all other settings as they are, that would make things faster and not diminish security or threat protection or Virus protection at all?

Yes. They will reduce the protection while opening documents. If you want more protection, let the defaults. I need a little better performance, so that's my custom settings.

[graak]

I guess it really depends on the machine and what they have running. Yes I did notice a performance improvement. I have not rebooted yet to notice if the icons I was missing came back. Like you say it reduces protection on a machine, but I guess whatever is left is enough. The defaults slow my machine down for now. Maybe in a future Avast update they can possibly make the file opening scan faster or less cpu/memory intensive. I know it is hard to do and very few have achieved that feet. But again, I tried the settings posted by tech minus having the XP only thing checked in the basic tab and all is back to normal speed wise again thanks. If I smell something weird or see my protection diminish to the point that I am actually worried, then I may try the defaults again and if that slows me down, I may look at something else, but in the mean time. Thanks again for all your help.

[alanrf]

Tech may well have special needs.  I run with the avast default settings and all of those I support now run with default settings too and I am hearing no performance complaints.  (The last user to need to reduce the settings was on a 9 year old system with a 733Mhz processor - that user now has a quad core system at a rather higher level than mine).

I have explained the icons issue to you - it is not avast related and no avast changes will affect it.