On Access Provider won't start

[wrinklysteve]

Greetings. I have been an Avast Free user for yonks but have recently been plagued by a new problem when installing Avast on refurbished (something I do for charity) computers such as the one I am on.  After the usual process of installing, rebooting etc. the icon appears in the system tray with a small 'no entry' sign, no providers running and nothing I attempt can get it going except, once or twice, by itself. This PC has Windows ME running.  There was a disagreement earlier with Skype but I still have the problem now Skype does not load at boot.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled Skype, repaired it, updated it, said nice things to it, all to no avail. What am I doing wrong, please?

[wrinklysteve]

Sorry, silly mistake,  - last sentence, for Skype read Avast. 

[DavidR]

You can click the modify button at the top of your post and go back in and correct errors, etc.

avast doesn't block, but scans and alerts to infected files, which I assume isn't the case here or you would have said. The fact that you have reinstalled avast would also tend to confirm it isn't blocking. However, something is most certainly having an impact on avast the Red circicle effectively means it isn't working.

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

This is one of the most common reasons for this Red circle over the icon, another AV or remnants still on your system. This can lead to conflict and this might show itself in this way apparent blocking.

Doing what you do there is likely to be another old AV on the system unless you perfoirm a complete format and start from scratch.

[wrinklysteve]

Thanks for reply.  The PC was a reformat and install job. I use ME because that's the one I have and until now have had no problem installing Avast.  This problem has arisen more than once with ME-loaded PCs but has usually corrected itself.  However I have twoother ME PCs 'on the bench' and both have Avast set up exactly the same (says he hopefully) and operating properly.
So, looking at it the other way, what are the known reasons for the 'no entry' sign and I'll look for them?

[DavidR]

Other FAQ's for this, however, winME doesn't feature in this as it is for later OSes, so I'm at a loss as I avoided winME when it was out.

- AAVM subsystem detected and RPC error. http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-other-questions.html#idt_1539

[wrinklysteve]

Thanks David. I had a brainwave - Skype is absent on the ME PCs that have Avast running properly so I uninstalled Skype, rebooted, uninstalled Avast, rebooted, installed Avast and bingo! the problem is still there! The only thing I can try now which I think I did before is to redownload setupeng and try again. 
I wonder if anyone else out there has Skype running in ME from a recent setupeng download - or is there a new coding that ME doesn't like?

[DavidR]

I don't use Skype, dial-up user, but I would have thought that Skype would possibly have had problems running on old systems. I don't know if in installing it Skype might not change/update old drivers, etc. and if that might have a knock on effect.


http://search.skype.com/search?q=windows+system+requirements&btnG=Search&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entsp=0&lr=lang_en&client=default_en-gb&ud=1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=default_en-gb&site=collection_en-gb

[wrinklysteve]

Well, the box marked with a ? has another entry.  I switched off this PC to do some more research, came back an hour or so later, fired it up and Avast is now running correctly! No little red sign, rotates as programs run etc etc.
Incidentally this is a broadband connection and I ran Skype v2 so's not to have the bloat of recent editions.
Watch this space as I am going to reinstall Skype - purely for text messaging.
Thanks for keeping an eye and making suggestions.

[wrinklysteve]

Final entry, possibly. This version of Avast does not like to cohabit with Skype 2.5 on this PC, although it works OK on two others set up the same way, running Windows ME. I've had a 'thread creation error', a BSOD, two lockouts, and a sick Avast, tmbaf. A little annoying as XP costs almost a week's pension. If I feel really masochistic I'll try a newer version of Skype. Then again.....
Thanks for your interest.

[DavidR]

My concern wasn't so much of a dial-up one, just that I use dial-up so never installed Skype, my concern was one of Skype not liking winME as that image I posted makes no mention of support for win9x or winME.

When you install avast on XP/Vista, etc. it uses different drivers, when installed on older systems, it uses different drivers and would expect to have certain system drivers available. So if Skype in its installation updates some winME files then that could have an impact on avast. That however, is pure speculation on my part as I have used neither winME or Skype.

[wrinklysteve]

Understood.  Sounds possible, but since ME is so old hat I don't suppose we'll ever find out.  My main reason for penny pinching and using ME is that, if I buy a more modern OS I can't sell the refurbed PCs and the whole object has been to support charities.  Anyway, it's all an education and that's not a bad thing.
Again, many thanks for your interest.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.