Problems w/ avast! 4.8 Home Edition

[Mr.Bud]

Hi everyone,

Apologies in advance for the length of this post.

I recently installed avast! Home Edition and encountered some problems.  Maybe someone has seen these before and will be able to help.  But first, here's my setup:

Core i7 920 cpu
ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 mobo
3 x 2 GB DDR3-1600
Vista 64 Home Premium w/SP1

avast! 4.8.1335 Home Edition
Previous security software:  Norton Internet Security 2008

Double-clicking the desktop shortcut avast! Antivirus (which points to ashAvast.exe), the splash screen displays while testing memory, but when finished, the splash screen disappears.  The user interface does not appear until double-clicking the desktop shortcut a second time.  The memory test runs as before, but when finished, the user interface appears.

If that were the only bit of weirdness, I could live with it, but there are two others not so easy to endure.  The first is when selecting a menu option (for example, in Internet Explorer or Acrobat Reader), the chosen menu option remains drawn on the display after the selecting mouse click.  The rest of the menu disappears as is normal.  This also happens with context (right-click) menu choices.  By the way, the menu appears semi-transparent until the mouse pointer is positioned on top of it.  The menu fragment stays on top of all other windows.  Selecting “Refresh” from the desktop context menu has no apparent effect.  The only way I've found to clear the fragment is to change the display resolution, but the problem recurs with the next menu choice.  This behavior does not appear until after I've double-clicked the avast! desktop shortcut or clicked avast! Antivirus from the Start menu.  It's repeatable and clearly linked to avast!

The second (and worse) problem is that when awakening from a sleep state, the computer's USB ports are disabled.  My keyboard and mouse are both USB devices, so there is no option but to press the reset button or turn the pc's power off.  My work-around is to leave a second mouse (PS/2) connected, which allows me to log off the current user account.  After logoff, the keyboard and USB mouse resume working.  As with the menu fragment problem, the disabled USB devices only occurs after running avast!

These problems occur on both administrative and non-admin user accounts.  avast! was installed from the administrative user account.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled avast! but the problems remain.  I've downloaded and run the Norton Removal Tool.  I still have the same problems.

Anybody have any ideas?  I appreciate any help the community can offer.

-Bud

[DavidR]

Lets deal with what is possibly the most important bit first, ensurring we get completely rid of Norton, which can be a real pig to get rid of.

A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT

Why are you using the desktop shortcut, this is normally used to start avast to do an on-demand scan when in safe mode ?

The SUI (Simple User Interface) not opening after the memory check has been associated with the presence or remnants of another AV.

Lets deal with this first, ensuring we have got rid of Norton and see what else is left of your list.

[Mr.Bud]

Thanks for the quick reply, DavidR.

The link you referenced goes to Symantec's site for their Norton Removal Tool, which I had already run (see the next-to-last paragraph in the original post).  Don't know if this is important or not, but I had uninstalled NIS 2008 from the "uninstall programs" option within control panel, and some time later, ran the Norton Removal Tool.

Is there value in running it twice?

As to why I used the desktop shortcut:  well, I had installed a new piece of software and saw that it created a shortcut.  I was curious.  And besides that, I wanted to register my copy.

-Bud

[DavidR]

I missed the bit you had already run the Norton removal tool, so no need to do it twice.

Complete the avast! 4 Home Registration form and you will receive an email from register @ avast.com (without the spaces) with your registration key.

Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc. - Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc.
- Edit the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\avast4.ini using Notepad [Common] section, add the following line to the section SunbeltKPFHack=2, save the file, you will be prompted by the avast! Self-defence module if this is OK answer Yes. Whilst this is primarily for Sunbelt or Kerio Personal Firewalls it may well work even if you don't use either of these firewalls.
Also see http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=37609.msg315764#msg315764 - Also see, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=40840.msg342656#msg342656 which mentions a similar issue relating to McAfee Site Advisor and remnants of menus, etc.

That's me for the night a little after 12:30am here and I'm up early.

[Mr.Bud]

Well, the short answer is that all my problems seem to be fixed by incorporating your avast4.ini mod.  It would seem I can put that old PS/2 mouse away.  Many thanks!

In case the development team monitors these boards, here's a little more info:

Before modding the .ini this evening, I checked for repeatability of the problems reported in the original post.  While my admin account showed all the problems every time, both of my non-admin accounts were fine.  While starting avast!, one difference noted between the admin & non-admin accounts was that Vista's User Account Control demanded confirmation to continue on my admin account, but there were no UAC pop-ups at all on the other accounts.

And this is probably trivial, but the desktop shortcut on the admin account is different from the other two.  The admin's shortcut has a small Windows Security Center logo on its lower right side, whereas the other icons are simply the blue sphere with the lower case “a”.

DavidR, thank you for taking the time to help.

Best regards,

-Bud

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

There can certainly be some weird interactions between applications and whilst that mod wasn't designed for this purpose, it seems to work, when we have ruled out other AVs (the most common interaction/conflict), thanks for the feedback.

I have so far avoided Vista like the plague and seeing the more UAC hoops that people have to jump through, the more I wonder how it is meant to help as it doesn't seem to hinder malware but is a pain in the rear for users.

[YoKenny]

I have so far avoided Vista like the plague and seeing the more UAC hoops that people have to jump through, the more I wonder how it is meant to help as it doesn't seem to hinder malware but is a pain in the rear for users.

Don't knock it until you try it.

I read that England is wet, dreary and cold maybe I should never go there again.   

Do they still serve Fish-n-Chips wrapped up in old newspapers?

[DavidR]

I only need to have to see the issues other people have with it to make me steer clear of it and not fork out in the region of £100 to see if I like it, thanks but no thanks.

Besides that there is no functionality in Vista that I absolutely need or can't do with XP Pro in fact depending on what version you get I can probably do more with XP Pro than some vista versions.

This place has become a health and safety mine field so I wouldn't be surprised if you can get it wrapped in old newspapers now. So the old saying 'Today's News, Tomorrows Fish & Chip wrapper,' is possibly redundant

[Mr.Bud]

All's still well with avast!, but I'm curious about this...

Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc. - Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc.

I couldn't find that in any avast! Home menu I looked at, nor did I get any hits when doing a search of the user manual.  What have I missed here?

-Bud

[DavidR]

It hasn't anything to do with the avast menu, but when you open other menus, drop down lists, etc. the menu or list or close a window it sometimes leaves graphic remnants. This has to do with certain programs, commonly other AVs and or firewalls, hooking keystrokes to intercept calls to launch programs/functions.

The change in the settings in the avast4.ini changes how avast handles this to try and avoid these partial conflicts.

[Confused Computer User]

All's still well with avast!, but I'm curious about this...

Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc. - Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc.

I couldn't find that in any avast! Home menu I looked at, nor did I get any hits when doing a search of the user manual.  What have I missed here?

-Bud

See this thread:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=41430.msg355137

I had a similar problem as you although I never tried it under a Standard user account. I gave up on that after the various time issues involved with keeping everything updated. Very annoying.

[Mr.Bud]

All's still well with avast!, but I'm curious about this...

Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc. - Menu, Display Remnants, Log Viewer Remnants, Graphics glitches, etc.

I couldn't find that in any avast! Home menu I looked at, nor did I get any hits when doing a search of the user manual.  What have I missed here?

-Bud

It hasn't anything to do with the avast menu, but when you open other menus, drop down lists, etc. the menu or list or close a window it sometimes leaves graphic remnants. This has to do with certain programs, commonly other AVs and or firewalls, hooking keystrokes to intercept calls to launch programs/functions.

The change in the settings in the avast4.ini changes how avast handles this to try and avoid these partial conflicts.

Ok, I think I understand.  You were suggesting key words to use in searching the forum for similar problems?

@Confused Computer User:
Thanks for the link.  I too have NVidia graphics; mine is a GTX 260, although my drivers are NOT up-to-date.  Gotta work on that, but with dial-up it's a painful process.  But first I want to upgrade my OpenOffice.org to 3.1.  Probably won't have time for anything else today after that!   

The .INI mod seems to be the fix I needed, though.

-Bud

[DavidR]

Not so much suggesting keywords to search on, but the symptoms under which this change to the avast4.ini was intended to try and resolve.

The fact that it also seems to have another benefit ove resolving the problem you experienced.