Windows 98 freezes/hangs on Shutting Down splash screen

[veteran]

Hi Guys,

I'm having the same freeze upon shutting down after having installed Avast 4.8 Home Edition as Rockstar in the thread "Windows 98 - "6 provider(s) total, 0 running" (4.8.1335 home)"

O/S = Windoze 98 4.10.1998 on a Compaq Presario

Ativirus history is CA's eTrust EZ Antivirus, then, until they pulled the W98 support, AVG 7.5, and now Avast 4.8 Home Edition. All previous anti virus proggies have been completely uninstalled before installing the next.

Firewall is still Zone Alarm, sometimes disabled when it acts up.

Avast doesn't seem to have any troubles updating and scanning, however, when I want to shut down, the computer hangs on the Win splash screen "shutting down". I tried to find out what caused this and came up with the following.

Zone Alarm at times may have to do with the hanging, but it isn't carved in stone. Disabling doesn't help to make shutting down any easier. But Zone Aalrm does hang now more often after Avast has been installed.

After taking Crtl-Alt-Del to peek at what all is running I found out that Ashwebsv and Ashmaisv are the two processes hanging. They have to be terminated in that order or else that lovely blu screen pops up. Shutting them down manually will prevent Scandisk to run upon startup, but I would prefer a solution to shut down Windoze in a more traditional way.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[alfainfo]

If you have not yet done this, try to do:

1. Uninstall avast from Control Panel first.
2. Boot.
3. Download the latest version of Avast Uninstall and use it for complete uninstallation. Maybe you should boot in Safe Mode.
4. Boot.
5. Install again the latest avast! version.
6. Boot

[.: L' arc :.]

From what you mentioned before: "Completely removed".. Did you mean, you also use the removal tool for the respective antivirus(es)..?

[DavidR]

If you have not yet done this, try to do:

1. Uninstall avast from Control Panel first.
2. Boot.
3. Download the latest version of Avast Uninstall and use it for complete uninstallation. Maybe you should boot in Safe Mode.
4. Boot.
5. Install again the latest avast! version.
6. Boot

I suggest you re order your list as you are advising a user to first uninstall before going to get the tools and the latest version so they are on-line unprotected.

Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall. Ensure that you scroll down and select the avast direct download link for the Dutch version and not Cnet as that is for an on-line installation (not what you want to do).

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

• 1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.
• 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot.  If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.
• 3. install the latest version, reboot.

[alfainfo]

sorry...
I was wrong...
Excuse me.... 

[DavidR]

Not a problem, I bet you won't do it again, it is just a learning curve.

I gave directions to the English version, when it should have been the Dutch version presumably for 'veteran' we all make mistakes and we learn from them

[veteran]

First of all, I want to apologize for my very belated reply to the help posted to my question. Due to work and other pressing matters I wasn't able to post.

I did the remove from Control Panel.
I did the booting.
I ran the Avast uninstall util.
I redownloaded the English version of Avast (because my OS is English and I detest mixing up all these different language versions, you'll end up with windoze questions in English, the answer options in Spanish and the help in German) and installed it, with the same problem as result.

so...
I did the remove from Control Panel.
I did the booting.
I didn't run the Avast uninstall util, but did it manually with WinCommander
I downloaded the Dutch version of Avast, thinking it perhaps sniffed out my location. (I had a couple of progs in the past which acted up if they weren't the right language version for the location), installed it and ended up with even more problems, so I uninstalled it like blazes!

and...
downloaded and installed the English version of avast again. But this time with a slightly different result. No, I still can't shut down my pc, but Ashmaisv is no longer hanging. Ashwebsv however still does, together with Systray; the last one even needing two crtl-alt-del kicks to get the "this prog is hanging screen". After closing all the progs from the task manager box (from bottom to top) the pc sometimes shuts down, but more often hangs on the splash screen. The only positive result of closing all progs from the task manager box is that Scandisk doesn't holler at startup.

So I'm at my wits end.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for the help.