avast! 4 Home Edition ... or so I thought!!!

[Dirigo]

 

Howdy!

I've been cruising along fat, dumb and happy (well, most of the time, that is) using avast! 4 Home Edition and receiving all the nice virus definitions updates without many problems.  Everything seems to be honky-dorry running in the background doing its things, but ...

yesterday I decided to run avast! virus scan all both my disk drives and the first odd thing that is displayed tells me ...

You are running an avast! 4 Pro Demo, ser # xxxxxxxx, and have 39 days to go!  Well, as far as I know, I never downloaded any Pro version.  The other recent items downloaded has only been the various virus def's and what I thought was an updated version of avast! 4 Home Edition recently, circa June 16, 2004 or so!  There was never a mention specifically of a Pro version being downloaded, Demo or otherwise.  Anyone else encounter this?  Perhaps I just messed up or missed  something I was suppose to read, but generally in the past I have had no problems with any updates to the Home Edition software I've been using.

Oh well ... if anyone else experienced this I'd sure like to know.  Heck, will I have to uninstall the Pro Demo software at the end of the trial period and reinstall whatever the latest and greatest Home Edition will be at that time?  Everything has been smooth sailing for at least six months or more ... but is this foreboding and tails of things to come?

Thanks in advance.

Dirigo

[DavidR]

It's quite possible that you downloaded the pro trial version (or that is the default download for all trials, you could check this in the folder you downloaded avast to, mine was avastsetupeng.exe?) and not the home version. There are little differences to the core program, just some additional functions in the Pro version.

The time indicated as being left it the remainder of 60 free trial. Use it and if you don't need the fully featured Pro, you can register online for the free version, you will then be emailed a free version registration key.

When you get that key, copy it from the email and right click on avast icon. From the window click the License Key button, paste the key from yoyr email into the window that pops up.

Avast will recognise that the key is for the the Home edition and disable the pro version functionality, etc. The next time after you restart/reboot your avast will be the Home edition. No need to uninstall anything.

[Dirigo]

Hey DavidR!

Thanks for the response.  While it is possible that I inadvertently downloaded the Pro version, I'm not 100% sure.  LOL!  What I mean is ... I haven't visited the avast! web site for quite some time and I think you might see I last posted in the Feb, March time frame.  Any downloading, of course, would have had to be done (semi-)automatically ... which is alright as I have granted access to my system to update the virus definitions and obviously any program updates to the Home Edition 4 free version that I had installed.  

I did not find the file you suggested, but do know from the About avast! I truly have a Pro Demo version of 4.1.418, recently built this June, 2004 and can see I have installed the exe file, ashavast.exe, dated June 10, 2004, along with a number of other files with various dates.  Oh well, as I have no real need for Pro I will do as you say ... use it for the remaining period of time.  I will now have to double check all the previous settings that I had "when I was fat, dumb and happy".  This does not make me happy at all though.  If avast! is going to "offer a trial program update" or whatever to a different software package it should be clearly flagged ... IMHO, if this is what happened, they did not!   That's not a good way to win friends and influence people, but ... since we don't really know what happened, I'll grin and bear it    It's a phantom PEBKAC phenomenon!  

Take care and thanks again for your response.  Really do appreciate the effort of you all.

[Summoner Yuna]

Enjoy you Home Edition.

[Dirigo]

@Summoner Yuna!

Thank you ... I will!

Take care,

Dirigo

[Dirigo]

   I'm still a wee bit confused re: "my Pro Demo" update (but at least it is still chugging along and working)!  

Why the confusion?  Well, I checked the versions of the actually running programs, i.e., ashavast.exe and ashserv.exe and both report they are versions 4.1.389.0 (which I believe is or was the previous Home Edition 4 version - would have to go check web site).  

Oh, the fun, the pain and the humanity of maintaining software builds and their respective software versions entities.

Also I checked the avast! Log Viewer and there is a logged event on 6/14/04 that reas: "There is a new version of program available ..."

Is there a log that actually details/lists what isoftware packages are installed for a given product/build at a given time?  I found nothing like that in the avast! Log Viewer.  I'll look around for one, but if anyone knows where it is located, I'd appreciated a tip.

Thanks in advance.

Dirigo

[Dirigo]

Ooops, typo in previous post ...

"Is there a log that actually details/lists what isoftware packages are installed for a given product/build at a given time?"

It should read software.

[Dirigo]

Looks like I may have found the appropriate file(s) that list the installed software ... I found these two files:

setup.log  ...\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup
Setup.log  ...\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log

Both files created on Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:06:40 AM.

There is a line that reads:

23:59:23 min/gen  Running setup_av_pro-156 (342)

So the install started on May 26 just before midnight my time and completed on May 27 in the wee hours of the morning, so I was probably not the sharpest tack at that time and missed the "setup_av_pro" ... I'm assuming that references the avast! Pro software ... so DavidR ... it looks like I did in fact download and install with blurry eyes.  LMAO!  

Again, thanks for all your help.

"Don't you just love it when ... a plan comes together!"  - The A Team

 

[DavidR]

Ooops, typo in previous post ...

"Is there a log that actually details/lists what isoftware packages are installed for a given product/build at a given time?"

It should read software.

If you find a typo in your post (I do it all the time, typing faster than my ability), just click the modify button within the post you made.

If you totally mess up you can delete the post, but I believe there is probably a time limit on that.

The Modify, Delete buttons only appear in posts submitted by you.

You will also notice a Last edited line added to the post.