Avast! 4.8 VRDB Creation Time?

[John_E]

I've just installed the latest version of Avast! on a new Vista (SP1) machine running in administrator account. I've noticed the VRDB has not been created yet and it was set to "screen saver". It is possible not enough time elapsed for VRDB to complete so I chose to "Generate Now". Ran for 45+ minutes and had still not completed. Is this normal?

The install itself seemed to go fine and Avast! seems to be running normally. There are about 40GB used on a 250GB drive, most all came installed with the HP laptop (lots of junk applications).

Thanks for any suggestions.

John in STL

[onlysomeone]

I would say everything is OK!

I don't know how VRDB works exactly, so I cant tell you what it does in this long time, but on my computer it also takes quiet long...

yours
onlysomeone

[Lisandro]

For me the same... VRDB is not being automatically generated on Vista 
I'm using VRDB at screen saver time and my screen saver is avast (+ Webshots).
I have to manually invoke VRDB... what's going on?

[John_E]

Tech,

Always nice not to be alone!. When you do manually invoke "Generate VRDB" how long does it take to complete? I don't even know what it's backing up and have to assume the operation is machine specific dependant upon what's installed and the OS?

John in STL

[Lisandro]

When you do manually invoke "Generate VRDB" how long does it take to complete?

I'm doing now... but it's difficult to compare as a lot of background applications/services are running right now on the computer. For sure, it will be some hours in my case. I have tons of applications installed (RevoUninstaller counts 241 applications).

I don't even know what it's backing up and have to assume the operation is machine specific dependant upon what's installed and the OS?

It depends on which executable files are present. It stores the necessary info to restore executables (*.exe, *.com) files.
VRDB is not a backup system, the stored information is very small (not the whole files).
Besides, only Win32 executables are processed.
The VRDB data are stored in <avast>\Data\Integ\avast.int
So it's not a bakcup utility, but a restore feature of avast.

[John_E]

Hours! Unless it's the first time only I'd think kind of tough on the drive. If you don't mind, let me know how long it took when it completes, as maybe there is nothing wrong here after all. I just don't recall avast 4.7 taking that long on XP. For now I have VRDB disabled.

Thanks,

John in STL

[Lisandro]

Hours! Unless it's the first time only I'd think kind of tough on the drive. If you don't mind, let me know how long it took when it completes, as maybe there is nothing wrong here after all. I just don't recall avast 4.7 taking that long on XP. For now I have VRDB disabled.

Thanks,

John in STL

I'm going to bed and will let the VRDB being generated... indeed, 5 hours and it does not finish yet.

[simpleton]

On my XP SP2 machine it took just over an hour

[PapaSmurf]

Mine took less than one hour

Winxp sp2
P4 w/clock set at 3.5
2gig memory
HDD C+D about 170Gig total
 Seems to me to just be a simple restore point feature.
It should not interfere with anything else.
I am wondering if the 5+ hours run time might be related to the amount of files running or loaded/installed?
it was my understanding that this is sort of a file restore point/reference to help avast clean nasties. hmmm?

[John_E]

Quite a variance in creation times, so, probably no big deal.

Having said that, after Tech posted his was still going after 5 hours, I gave it one more shot by selecting "generate VRDB". It took only 40 minutes to complete and properly shows the last creation date and time. Wonder if it knows where it left off no matter how you set the creation method?

Anyway, I've set it to "idle" and will see what happens in the next couple of weeks. Thanks to all who provided input on this issue.

John in STL

[Lisandro]

7 hours and a half...

For me the same... VRDB is not being automatically generated on Vista 
I'm using VRDB at screen saver time and my screen saver is avast (+ Webshots).
I have to manually invoke VRDB... what's going on?

Why isn't VRDB working automatically on Vista?
My question remains...

[MikeBCda]

My XP-Home SP3 system has about 5 gigs of files (naturally I haven't a clue what portion of them the VRDB generator is "interested" in).  Set for screen saver mode (I don't use one), Generate Now typically takes about 15 minutes.

[Solemn]

I've had an interesting experience with the VRDB generation time too on Vista x64.  It took well over an hour (I think it was an hour and a half actually) to complete even though I barely had anything installed and had nothing else running which was kind of concerning (this was done after a clean install and update).  The odd thing is that it almost always takes 15-45 mins max on XP systems that have lower performance than my computer, so I guess there's something either going on with 64-bit support or Vista in general.

[epp]

Yesterday, I reinstalled Avast 4.8 after trying another anti-virus product.  I did not select "Typical" when installing, I selected the item underneath it, which was to have installed the same as "Typical", except for the skins.

The VRDB has not yet generated, nor do I have the (i) icon next to the clock.  The (a) icon has been present since it was reinstalled. 

To avoid issues, I installed Avast while Windows was in Safe Mode and am running Windows XP SP 2.

I do not see a selection anywhere that allows for a manual creation of the VRDB, since I do not have the (i) icon on-screen. 

The reason why I chose not to install the skins was because the CPU is 500 MHz (a little slow by today's standards) and with a previous installation with skins, once the Avast interface was displayed it ran unusually slow.

Is there a way somehow, to manually create the VRDB, and was it a mistake to install Avast in Safe Mode??  Should it also be re-installed, due to the lack of the (i) icon??  The system has been for a total of three hours between yesterday and today and the VRDB has still not generated.

Thank you for any help.

[epp]

I have now reinstalled Avast a total of THREE times and have the exact same results, whether I install it with or without the skins and in Safe/Normal Mode.

I go into the Update settings, click Details, the program immediately hangs.  I open the Task Manager, Avast is listed twice with both processes "not responding" and I still did not have the (i) icon for the VRDB, after all three installs.  It also shows 100% CPU usage at the time.

Avast is the only product that I've seen that scans outgoing mail on port 587 which is what my ISP uses, as well as newsgroup messages.  I would like to use Avast, but I'm having too many problems with it.