Author Topic: User's FAQ  (Read 264244 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2004, 05:50:07 AM »
DefTasks.xml - Scanning archive files…

The avast configuration are stored into Windows Registry, avast4.ini, and avast4.mdb (or avast4.xml).
The file deftasks.xml is not a configuration storage. That is, the configuration is not read from it when being used.

Rather, it's a tool that lets us enforce certain settings to your current config. I.e. it is read and parsed every time avast starts (on system boot, usually), and all settings from it are transfered to the actual config storage. The configuration storage is indeed the avast4.mdb in case of Database=ODBC (or avast4.xml in case of Database=XML), in short, avast4.mdb (or .xml) is the file where avast stores its current configuration (besides the ini file).

The reverting-to-the-original-version thing you're seeing is a consequence of the fact that deftasks.xml is normal part of avast installation and therefore the avast auto-repair feature always replaces it to the original version. However, this is not a problem as the import procedure from the modified version is already done at that moment.

On-demand, the user just need to turn on archive scanning.

On-access, avast! by default doesn't look for viruses in packed files. However, it can be enabled. Look at the deftasks.xml file in the avast! folder. All you need to do to enable scanning of archives on-access is to add the line:

<STANDARD--ScanPackers>EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ</STANDARD--ScanPackers>

after the line
<STANDARD--InvalidEntry>1</STANDARD--InvalidEntry>

Speaking technically, these are file formats (unpacker engines) and not file extensions.
If you're using avast! 4 Professional, the same thing can be done in a more convenient way by editing the resident task, the Packers settings on each provider.

Settings for ashQuick.exe program are available in Professional Edition of avast! and are managed by Enhanced User Interface... If you want to enable archives scanning for ashQuick.exe on your computer, add following lines into your DefTasks.xml file:

<Task>
<DefTaskVersion>1</DefTaskVersion>
<Label>*Quick</Label>
<ScanPackers>All</ScanPackers>
</Task>

Then restart avast! service (if you are using Win9x or ME restart your computer) to reflect made changes...

I looked at the lines further down in the file and the looked similar, but had some extra file-extensions, and "overwrite=no" in the tag, should those additions be added to the tag you suggested too (are they newer additions since your original posting) or....

<OUTLOOK--ScanPackers>EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</OUTLOOK--ScanPackers>
<MAIL--ScanPackers>EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</MAIL--ScanPackers>
<P2P--ScanPackers>EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</P2P--ScanPackers>
<IM--ScanPackers>EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</IM--ScanPackers>

If you add the attribute overwrite="no" you would make the changes unusable:

<OUTLOOK--ScanPackers overwrite="no">EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</OUTLOOK--ScanPackers>
<MAIL--ScanPackers overwrite="no">EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</MAIL--ScanPackers>
<P2P--ScanPackers overwrite="no">EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</P2P--ScanPackers>
<IM--ScanPackers overwrite="no">EXE;ZIP;MIME;RAR;ARJ;TAR;GZ;CAB;ARC;ACE;ZOO;BZIP2;WinExec</IM--ScanPackers>
« Last Edit: July 09, 2004, 05:13:16 PM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #16 on: June 09, 2004, 05:51:25 AM »
Registration

You can register again at any time and you will receive a valid key for 14 months from now. If you use the same e-mail address, the customer number part of the key will stay the same (the 7 digit number that follows the letter at the beginning of the key).

Troubleshooting with License key on another profile

Be careful: This requires Windows Registry Edition. Backup your Registry first! Do on your own risk!

Log on under your account, run Regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ALWIL Software, click Permissions and make sure all the accounts have at least read access (they should have it by default). If they don't, you need to add it. You can add the Everyone group as well. To do this:

1. After you find that folder on the left pane right click it.
2. Select permissions.
3. Select Add.
4. Select Add.
5. Select Advanced
6. Select Find Now.
7. Select Everyone.
Click ok.
8. Then click the full control and read boxes under the Allow column.
9. Click Apply.

Repeat from step 3 for each user that you are having problems with.
Exit then restart and log in on the problem profile and everything should be all right.
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #17 on: June 09, 2004, 05:53:42 AM »
System volume information folder

There is a way to get into the System volume information folder and delete singly restore points:

1. Open folder options, view, hidden files and folders, check show all files and folders.
2. Turn off simple file sharing, click apply and then close the folder options.
3. Browse to the C:\System volume information folder, right click on it, select properties.
You'll now see a Security tab, click on it.
4. On the security page under Group or users names click on Add.
On the Select Users or Groups page that opens type in your user name in the enter window.
Then click on check Names button to verify the name with.
Now click on the ok button.
5. Now you can give yourself full control in the Permissions window, click apply and you're done.

Now you can turn back on simple file sharing and still be able to open the system volume information folder.
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #18 on: June 09, 2004, 05:54:35 AM »
avast! and Spam detection

This should be changed in avast 4.5 version  :'(
I need time to update it...

To insert spam inspection into the pop mail chain you have to make a 'chain': email client > spam inspector > avast! > pop server
The spam application should be able to verify (listen) on localhost (127.0.0.1) at any port number you configure.
If the spam inspector looks only at port 110 it will be a conflict as avast! (by default) will listen on 110.
If spam application could be set to listen on a different port, presumably then the parameters put into the email client just have To ensure that they direct it to the spam inspector and then to avast! and the pop server.
You will have something like this:

K9 spam filter (http://www.keir.net/k9.html)
In the email account settings:
pop server: 127.0.0.1
account name: myaccountname#mypopserver/127.0.0.1/110
incoming mail port: 9999

K9 passes the information myaccountname#mypopserver to port 110 on 127.0.0.1 which is where avast! is listening

Spam Pal

In the email account settings:
pop3 server: localhost
smtp server: localhost
incoming port: 1110
outgoing port: 25
pop username: 127.0.0.1/110/user.name#smtp.server.net

SpamPal settings:
port number: 111 for mail.my_isp.com
LAN configuration: localhost
Access control: localhost

Avast! settings are it's own default settings. The incoming ports are all different for Avast! (110), email client (1110) and Spampal (111). Also, localhost is translated to IP 127.0.0.1 and is normally the case on most machines. But it's recommended to use the IP address 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost in the settings mentioned above just to make sure you get it right the first time.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2004, 12:41:43 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #19 on: June 09, 2004, 05:55:55 AM »
avast! and Internet Explorer

avast! does not use Internet Explorer for update. But, Internet Explorer is used to display some things (iNews, for example). However, it is not used for Internet connections.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2004, 05:56:18 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #20 on: June 09, 2004, 05:56:14 AM »
Windows Explorer Context Menu

Be careful: This requires Windows Registry Edition. Backup your Registry first! Do on your own risk!

If, for any reason, you cannot see the line Scan... for viruses in the Windows Explorer Context Menu for an specific extension, go to the Windows Registry key:
HKCR\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
Copy the avast! subkey and put the same (subkey) to the missing file extension, for instance, the .pif file:
HKCR\piffile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

You can remove the avast! context menu extension by removing the avast! entry from that keys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
and
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
« Last Edit: June 09, 2004, 06:24:08 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #21 on: June 09, 2004, 05:56:36 AM »
Greyed out areas on the avast! Menu (both Home and Professional version)

When you run (finish) a scanning test, these options should be available (but only until you close avast!).
However:
Last Scan Results will be available only if there were any results, i.e. if any virus has been found.
View Scan Reports will be available only when the creation of the report file is turned on (Settings / Report file).
Status Information just refreshes the initial screen of the Simple User Interface (VPS Info, etc).
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #22 on: June 09, 2004, 05:56:50 AM »
Karma

What was the Karma?

Karma was a kind of popularity thing. It was purely for fun, and it offers no kind of functionality/limitations. The idea behind karma is that people can smite or applaud a user, affecting their karma by +1 or -1. This results in users having a kind of score, which reflects what people on the board think of them. There were several ways to manipulate the karma in the forum. The number of karmas shows the difference between the 'applauds' and the 'smites' you got. There were two buttons for these actions. If you like somebody you can applaud him/her if you don't like you were able to smite him.

1) The Administrator could set it up so only a certain member group can use it. This is useful for points systems. You can restrict the use to the Administrator member group and use Karma to dole out points to users.

2) The Administrator can set a wait time. The wait time effects how often people can repeat an option. Setting it larger means you can't affect someone's score as much as you could if the time was less. While you aren't allowed to repeat an action (smite vs. applaud) within the wait time - you can change your mind at any time.

3) The Administrator can restrict it so that only people with a certain number of posts can smite or applaud - this will prevent people from registering just to smite or applaud.

4) And the Administrator can show either the net karma or the +/- numbers. This is interesting, as a user with only 50 posts, but +70/-72 is obviously much more controversial than someone who's posted hundreds of times, but has only a +/- of +5/-7

Right now it is a disabled function with a lot of controversy… At the end of 2003, a discussion in the forums get terrible bad and a lot of others were involved. The avast! team had to wait some time to react but the forum atmosphere were 'explosive'. The webmaster close all threads about the karmas and remove the buttons of applaud and smite. Maybe someday we will have the 'karmas' again... But I think it will take some time for it.
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #23 on: June 09, 2004, 05:57:05 AM »
Differences between the Home and the Professional version

About the differences between Home (free) and Professional versions see:

Remarkable points:
- Scheduling
- Push updates
- Enhanced User Interface and the possibility to do and configure a lot of things inaccessible by the Simple UI (such as setting of automatic actions for the on-access scanners (mail shields etc.), customization of archive scanning (both on-access and on-demand), and fine-tuning all scanning parameters.
- Also, please keep in mind that the Home version is for home, non-commercial use only - meaning that in all other cases, avast! Professional version is the only alternative.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2004, 05:57:44 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #24 on: June 09, 2004, 05:57:19 AM »
avast! keeps asking for reboot after an virus database update (iAVS update)

In normal conditions, there are three files that avast! modifies when updating.
In the past, Windows 98 seems to mark these files as read only which prevents avast! from changing them.
Therefore it continues in its attempt to update them.
The files are all listed in the avast! log setup file (not the Log Viewer).
These files seem to definitively be the source of the problem: msvc170, msvcp70 and msvcr70.
Once you locate the file names, go into the file properties for each and uncheck the Read Only attribute.
Reboot.
Avast! should update correctly on the next attempt.
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #25 on: June 09, 2004, 05:58:19 AM »
Winzip and avast!

To add avast! into the programs settings of Winzip you must add the %d parameter.

Special character sequences for the parameters field are:

*.* - Indicates where WinZip should substitute the drive, folder, and the *.* characters for the files that are to be scanned. For example, “c:\temp\dir\*.*”.

%d - Indicates where WinZip should substitute the drive and folder of the files that are to be scanned. Note that the wild card characters *.* are not included when you use %d.

%f - Indicates where WinZip should substitute the name of a temporary report file. Report files should only be used when running DOS virus scanners.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2004, 05:58:46 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #26 on: June 09, 2004, 05:58:31 AM »
Providers sensibility

For most modules there is no big difference between Normal and High, but there is a big one for Standard Shield.
On Normal level it scans only opened files (the one you click on), on High it scans files that are scanned when created/modified and when they are opened. I recommend High setting for optimal protection.

For On-Access scans (manual):
Quick Scan: scans only infectable files, virus targeting is probably on: exe, pif, com, scr and so on.
Standard: scans all files, virus targeting is probably off.
Thorough all files: scans entire file not just header, virus targeting off.

In a Standard scan what you call virus targeting is broadened so that all files are at least briefly checked to determine what file type they really are, regardless of extension. And if they're actually executable/infectable despite (probably false) file extensions, then they get the full scanning treatment.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2004, 02:07:05 PM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #27 on: June 09, 2004, 05:59:12 AM »
Windows 9x memory management

To make your system faster, it's suggested the following changes:
Go to the Windows directory, find the system.ini file and open it in Notepad.
1. Find the section [386Enh] and write the following line there:
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1
2. Find the section [vcache] - if it isn't present, create it.
Write the following two lines there:
MinFileCache=2048
MaxFileCache=8192
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #28 on: June 09, 2004, 06:02:06 AM »
Scheduling a scanning with avast! shell extension program: ashQuick.exe at Windows XP

Start Windows Task Scheduler (Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks)
Click (or double-click) on Add Scheduled Task
In the wizard that appears click Next (a list of programs will appear)
Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast!4 (or whatever folder in which you installed avast!)
Click (or double-click) on the file ashQuick.exe
On the next screen give the task a name of your choice and choose how often you want it to run and click on Next
On the next screen choose the appropriate scheduling options and click on Next
On the next screen enter the user name and password for the Windows user you want the task to run as, then click on Next
On the next screen check the box for the option Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish, and then click Finish

On the next screen, in the Run field you will see the path for the ashQuick.exe program. After the closing quote enter a space and type in the path(s) that you want scanned. Multiple paths must be separated by a space and any paths that include a space in the path name must be in quotes. Here are a couple of examples:
"C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast!4\ashQuick.exe" C: D: - this will scan the entire contents of the C: and D: drives
"C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast!4\ashQuick.exe" "C:Program Files" D:Downloads - this will scan the contents of the Program Files folder on the C: drive and the Downloads folder on the D: drive, including all subfolders (Note: the first path is in quotes due to the space in the folder name "Program Files")
Click OK
In the Scheduled Tasks window, from the menu, click on Advanced and choose Start Using Task Scheduler
To test your newly created task, from the Scheduled Tasks window, right-click on the task's icon and choose Run from the popup menu. If the scan doesn't begin correctly you'll get an error message. The problem is most likely in the scan path (missing quotes or something like that.)
Close the Scheduled Tasks window

This is just a quick scan: scans only infectable files, virus targeting is probably on: exe, pif, com, scr and so on. The virus targeting is broadened so that all files are at least briefly checked to determine what file type they really are, regardless of extension. And if they're actually excecutable/infectable despite (probably false) file extensions, then they get the full scanning treatment.

Lastly, I wouldn't suggest using the screen saver scanner in conjunction with this scheduled scan, as they may end up running at the same time and cause conflicts of access.

Note: the user must have a password on his/here account before one can use the Task Scheduler. It does not work in system without a password.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2004, 07:57:32 PM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.

Offline Lisandro

  • Avast team
  • Certainly Bot
  • *
  • Posts: 67194
Re:User's FAQ
« Reply #29 on: June 09, 2004, 06:02:20 AM »
avast! and Pop Mail / Yahoo / Hotmail

When you would like to scan your Internet based e-mail like Yahoo, MSN or Hotmail, you have to make sure your e-mail application gets them through a pop-proxy, like HotPopper of FoxPop (part of FoxMail 5). For use with this application you have to make your configuration something like this.

Example with FoxMail 5:
smtp server: localhost
pop3 server: localhost
Account login: name@yahoo.com#localhost:8110 (8110 is port of FoxPop)

FoxPop config:
Pop3 port: 8110

Now avast! sees your Internet based mail as PopMail and the Internet Mail Scan function of avast! should work (test with "add note to message")
localhost normaly referes to 127.0.0.1
In Windows XP it's defined in \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

You also have to check for the next lines in avast!.ini:

[MailScanner]
Trust=127.0.0.1
DefaultSmtpServer=127.0.0.1:25
DefaultPopServer=127.0.0.1:110
« Last Edit: June 09, 2004, 06:02:55 AM by Technical »
The best things in life are free.