Is it running or need I do more?

[Drew345]

I am not sure my Avast is running correctly, or if I need to do more to “start” it.
I am running Avast 4.8 Home Edition Free Antivirus.
I have Windows Vista, SP2 running on a HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop.

Upon Boot-up, on the bottom-right of the toolbar there is a blue circle with an “a” turning round and round. And if I mouse over it then it says “avast! On-Access scanner: 7 providers total 6 running” If I left-click on it, it shows the “avast! On access scanner" window and Resident Protection status is "active", and every shield is running (except outlook/exchange, which I have never used in my life anyway). So it looks like everything is running…

BUT, if I right-click on the little blue circle with an “a” then I see  “start Avast! Antivirus” as the second option. Sooooo, do I have to start it, or is it running? If it is running already, why is there a command to say “start Avast! Antivirus”. It makes me confused about if it is running or not.

So when I do select the “start Avast! Antivirus” then a control board (skin?) opens up that allows me to select my hard drive to scan for virus or to select certain floders/drives to scan.

So my questions:
Is my Avast running correctly when I see the little blue circle with an “a” turning round, or do I need to do the “start Avast! Antivirus” (by right-clicking the little blue circle) to get it running?

Thanks,
Drew

[Pondus]

Upon Boot-up, on the bottom-right of the toolbar there is a blue circle with an “a” turning round and round. And if I mouse over it then it says “avast! On-Access scanner: 7 providers total 6 running” If I left-click on it, it shows the “avast! On access scanner" window and Resident Protection status is "active", and every shield is running (except outlook/exchange, which I have never used in my life anyway). So it looks like everything is running…

Nr.7 will start if you have/open outlook (not outlook express)

BUT, if I right-click on the little blue circle with an “a” then I see  “start Avast! Antivirus” as the second option. Sooooo, do I have to start it, or is it running? If it is running already, why is there a command to say “start Avast! Antivirus”. It makes me confused about if it is running or not.

well if you want to open the program, then you click start

So my questions:
Is my Avast running correctly when I see the little blue circle with an “a” turning round, or do I need to do the “start Avast! Antivirus” (by right-clicking the little blue circle) to get it running?

after install everything should be normal, and you see the blue ball turning when it is doing something


you can test the program here  http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm 
scroll down til you see the file eicar.com turn your volum up loud and click it ........


recomended download: avast! User Guides and Manuals http://www.avast.com/eng/download-user-guides-and-manual.html
avast! 4 FAQs http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-avast-4-home-professional.html

[norel]

Sounds like everything's working fine.     That "Start avast! Antivirus" has confused a few others as well, but all it does is open the interface as you described.

[Drew345]

Thanks for the replies and info.
It does seem to be running fine (the "start Avast Antivirus" did indeed confuse me)

I clicked on the "fake" virus files and got the alarms. Good Fun! Thanks!
I downloaded the operators manual PDF.

Seems that "start Avast Antivirus" just opens up that manual scan interface. Seems like that ought to be renamed to be less confusing to something like "start manual scan".

I found in the user manual a great way to get Avast to do this "manual" scan automatically whenever the screensaver comes on. This is great! I was always so annoyed how the AVG hard drive scanner would start up when I was doing something or right when I booted the machine. Time the scan to go when the screen saver comes on- genius!

Thanks, Drew

[Pondus]

If you don`t like the car stereo look you can disable the skin http://forums.spybot.info/blog.php?b=24
You can aslo sett the screensaver what to do when a virus is found, mine is sett to "repair if fail move to chest"