Can't delete skins.

[Anthony A]

I downloaded and tired out several skins. I have decided on a couple and want to delete the rest. After doing a search I see you can't delete the default skins but i can't delete any skins. When I try I get "access denied" message. I checked that the files are not read only so why can't I delete the skins?

[alanrf]

These avast files are protected by the new self-protection feature of avast in avast 4.8.

They are very small files and leaving them in place does no harm.  If you want to delete them then please take the following steps:

avast icon > Program Settings > Troubleshooting > Check "Disable avast! self-defense module"

Delete the unwanted skin files

avast icon > Program Settings > Troubleshooting > Uncheck "Disable avast! self-defense module"
 

[Lisandro]

Silver Panel cannot be deleted (so does Low Res but this one is not shown on the list)
The other 2 default skins, Teak Zeppelin and SZC-KDE can be removed by using the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > avast Antivirus > Change/Remove > Change > Skins option.

the checkbox is there, not the checkboxes but only one checkbox with the word Skins. that's how it should be, there's only one check box Skins, and it applies to both Teak Zeppelin and SCZ-KDE. As I said, Silver Panel and Low Res will always stay.

[Anthony A]

OK thank you it was the setting under trouble shooting that was the problem.

Tech, I do not have Teak Zeppelin as a default skin. I have  SZC-KDE and Silver Panel and in the folder there is the Low Res. Those are my defaults.

[Lisandro]

Tech, I do not have Teak Zeppelin as a default skin. I have  SZC-KDE and Silver Panel and in the folder there is the Low Res. Those are my defaults.

You're right. My fault.

[skinless]

I do have the low-res listed as well as the Silver. I was able to delete them in Safe Mode, but then at the next update, Avast put them back in the folder. I like to keep my disk as clean as possible, and this is almost 2 MB for two files that I will never use. The simple skin suits me very well. This is a fine product, and I am very grateful for it, but I do not understand why I must keep these skins on my disk if I don't want them there. Could you not remove the "access denied" for these unwanted files? Thank you very much!

[DavidR]

They are default skins and if you are having an issue about 2MB you really are in trouble with space on your HDD.

You are bumping into the avast self-defence module stopping you deleting or otherwise interfering with avast files. Whilst it is possible to disable it temporarily (Program Settings, Troubleshooting) and delete those you don't want. However, I feel this is a waste of time as you have found avast will replace them as it does an integrity check and would replace them.

You say you are happy with the simple skin, though I suspect you mean, the 'Skinless' (ashSimp2.exe) interface from your forum name ?

If this is correct why not uninstall the skin function completely. Windows add remove programs, avast! Antivirus, change/remove button. From the pop-up, select Change, Next button, find the Skins and uncheck the box, see image, click Next and OK your way out of the avast! Antivirus Setup window.

I don't know if that removes the old skins, but it should I think stop them being replaced when they are removed. However I still feel that this is a lot of trouble just to save 2MB, there really are better ways to save space.

[Lisandro]

I do have the low-res listed as well as the Silver. I was able to delete them in Safe Mode, but then at the next update, Avast put them back in the folder. I like to keep my disk as clean as possible, and this is almost 2 MB for two files that I will never use. The simple skin suits me very well. This is a fine product, and I am very grateful for it, but I do not understand why I must keep these skins on my disk if I don't want them there. Could you not remove the "access denied" for these unwanted files? Thank you very much!

You can't delete the default skins, oh, you can delete SZC-KDE but never the silver one. When you repair or update avast it will be back. Don't worry that much, avast 5 won't have skins at all...

[skinless]

You say you are happy with the simple skin, though I suspect you mean, the 'Skinless' (ashSimp2.exe) interface from your forum name?

Yes, exactly.

If this is correct why not uninstall the skin function completely.

That is why I came to this forum - because Avast was re-installing the skins. I saw a post about doing what you said, and did that. But as you see from Tech's reply, the Low-Res and Silver cannot be deleted. Even with Skin function uninstalled, when these two are deleted, Avast Update still replaces them.

However I still feel that this is a lot of trouble just to save 2MB, there really are better ways to save space.

DavidR, I thank you for your time and very thoughtful reply. I see that you are from the UK. May I share with you a joke from the US?
Two Congressmen are leaving the Capitol building after a session devoted to next year's Federal budget. One says to the other,
"You know how it is. A billion dollars here and a billion there, and before you know it, you're talking real money." 

OK, it's not so funny. But each programmer working on every program and OS likes to include a few extra "fancy" touches, thinking, "It's only a few MB", but if you multiply that by how many programs and sub-programs are on your computer, it starts adding up to hundreds of MB or even into a number of GB.

I don't have a problem with disk space. I have an 80GB hard drive and am using just over 1.5 GB total. (Not a misprint. 1500+ MB). The Windows (XP SP2 Home) folder has been cut from 2.7 GB to 497 MB, with more to go. (Pagefile and hibernation file are gone.) The machine runs faster than it ever did before (boots faster, too), and defrags and backups take only a few minutes versus almost an hour for people with nearly-full drives. Just a personal choice. (BTW, did you know that you can eliminate that half-second delay from the time you point to something in your Programs or Bookmarks menu and the time the sub-menu appears? It can be literally instantaneous, which is kind of a cool effect.)

@ Tech: Thanks for confirming what I just found out. I think it's a great idea to have just the ashSimp2.exe as the default, then perhaps provide an online gallery where users who want to can download other skins. Looking forward to Avast 5. Thanks again for a great product!

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

The largest hog of hard disk space is frequently the system restore function and its associates system volume information folders. The size allocated to theses are usually a percentage of the total HDD size, this figure is often as high as 10% by default and can safely be lowered to a more reasonable size, 2% of an 80GB HDD is still a lot

I have seen people with in excess of 1.5GB of data in the restore points almost greater than your total data size. I have my system restore disabled because I have other system recovery plans, weekly HDD image back-ups, but that takes space for both the application and the back-ups

HDDs like RAM is there to be used or there is little point paying over the odds for a large HDD/RAM if you don't really need it

I don't use hibernation, can't see the need, I just go to stand by, on my previous system two HDDs my pagefile.sys was split over the two HDDs with only 128MB on the primary HDD, the remainder and of a fixed size was on my second HDD, that works too in keeping down fragmentation.

My defrags and HDD image backups for my C: windows partition (4.67GB) E:\ data partition (1.6GB) take virtually no time at all. My daily data back-ups are usually measured in seconds not minutes. So it is possible to manage with a little more physical data on your system (obviously your system your choice) without parring to the bone

[skinless]

I've seen 4.5 GB System Restore on one of my own machines before trimming, and I've seen forum posts about 15-20 GB of Restore.

I too have SysRestore disabled, but my data and image backups are all external, i. e., to Flash, CD, or DVD. I agree that backups to an internal partition are even faster, but have you considered that if it is your HDD that fails physically, rather than a sw corruption, the backup partition may be of no use, depending on the degree of damage? It might need a clean room with bunny-suit people -- very expensive :-)

I didn't pay up for a large HDD. I bought the cheapest model of this rather low-end machine, and that's what it came with. I paid a few dollars for an after-market RAM upgrade, which enabled the disabling of the pagefile. This made a huge increase in speed, and, I am told, saves considerable wear and tear on the HDD, as RAM is constantly reading and writing to the disk (pagefile.sys). No more.

I agree your disk usage is still very reasonable and that you should have fast internal backups. I see posts at other forums complaining that they have problem X, and they have only 9GB HDD space left, please help! I just kind of got into this frame of mind that "If you don't need it, why are you carrying it around?" E. g., in Win XP SP2 there is a text editor designed for people migrating from Win 3.1 to 95; there is a file (C\Windows\System32) traffic.dll which is used only in the Microsoft® Flight Simulator® game. Probably only 0.01% of all buyers of XP will buy that game, but the file is there anyway.

It gets to be kind of fun after a while, seeing what ridiculous and obsolete garbage is in there, along with legitimate files for functions that I don't use and never will. Program files are almost as bloated sometimes. E. g., Microsoft® Office 2007® > 700 MB. Open Office, which is free, is about 280 MB out of the "box". I have it down to 142 MB. So, I guess it's become sort of a hobby -- in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." None of my own data have been sacrificed.

Thoroughly enjoyable chatting with you. Cheers!

[DavidR]

I also back-up off-system and I'm about to get an external HDD enclosure that allows for esata connection so that would be much quicker than USB2 external HDD.

Yes HDDs are coming down in price massively, now I can buy a 1TB drive (if I ever needed it) for less than what my first 512MB HDD cost me and at the time they said you will never fill this
It didn't take that long before I was using compression software as it was almost full. Next was a 1GB HDD, then a 10GB drive each advancement being costly, pretty much the same as or more expensive than a 1TB drive now.

Bye for now, time for bed here, almost 1:20 a.m.

[skinless]

Smart to backup off as well as on. I assume there's a copy in your bank's safe deposit box, in case your house burns down?  j/k

It's hard to picture a home user using 1 TB, unless every movie they've ever bought, downloaded, or rented is being stored on their HDD. Or they have the world's largest collection of artistic pictures of pretty ladies. 

BTW, I saw you were in some threads about posting an avatar. I saw these steps:

8. Go to your Profile -> Modify Profile
9. Choose "i have my own pic", then paste the URL.

However, when I do step 8, the "i have my own pic" box doesn't appear. What's wrong? (Using Firefox, so I hope this isn't an ActiveX thing.)

[DavidR]

There is a restriction on advanced profile settings until you have 20 posts (Junior Member, not Newbie), this restriction also applies to using the PM function.

This is because of past abuse of the PM and signature spamming of drive by posters, unfortunately we suffer because of their actions.

[skinless]

unfortunately we suffer because of their actions.

Every legitimate forum user does.

I'm hoping I won't have any real Avast issues (this one was rather trivial), and I don't know enough to answer other posts (and I'm not going to spam 15 useless posts to get to Junior lol), so I guess I can live without an avatar.   :'(

Thanks for your time and help, and also thanks on behalf of the many others you've obviously helped. Advanced forum members who answer many posts don't always get thanked, plus they have no idea how many people might have come to a forum, searched, found an answer, and so left without ever joining or posting or thanking the person who posted the answer they found. (I've certainly done that many times.) So know that each solution you post might help a thousand people or more, and enjoy the mounting good Karma. It does come back to each of us, somehow. Regards,

Skinless

PS Why is it changing the "a" in "K-a-r-m-a" to the @ sign, at least in my preview? Is that a "filter" word?