Resident Protection doesn't start - AAVM detected RPC err - services disabled

[jkenw]

Resident Protection doesn't start during system boot. Attempts to start manually -- tasks/resident protection/run -- fail with messages: "The AAVM Subsystem detected a RPC error" and "Can not start Resident Protection Task".

Review with MMC show 4 Avast services disabled. Can not start or change startup status from "disabled".

Running AVAST 4.8  on Windows XP SP3.

Stumped! Has anyone seen this problem or have any advice to offer?

Thanks, jkenw

[DavidR]

This is most commonly associated with another AV or remnants of one still on your system.

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

[jkenw]

Thanks. Recent update to Zone Alarm added AV capability. Tried to disable ... perhaps unsuccessfully. I probably need to completely remove Zone Alarm and re-install just the firewall portion. Thoughts?

[DavidR]

That is exactly what you need to do uninstall ZA completely, reboot and do a custom install excluding the AV element.

Resident AVs install low level drivers to hook files to be able to scan them, this can cause conflict, which at worst can lock up your system or worse still if it happens at boot. So if avast detects this it can disable its processes to avoid possible serious conflict.

If this is ZA Pro you may be in for more joys of ZA as its Privacy function can also conflict with the Web Shield.