Back to Avast 4.8....for now.

[kjacobs]

Hello all....

I have been using Avast faithfully for the past 2 years and it has always done an incredible job. This morning I downloaded the latest Avast 5 Free for one of my machines. I liked the new look and interface. However, it appears to run much slower than 4.8 ever did. The scan presets do not function. And once I did setup a custom scan to go, I could not see any scan progress. I could not pause or stop a scan in progress, either. I did not noticed the CPU issue that I have read about on other posts. However, 4.8 ran very streamlined and fast, even on a few of my older P4 machines. Avast 5 on this dual core seemed a lot more sluggish. Once scanning, it brought the machine almost to a halt. Again...never noticed this with 4.8, so........think I will wait a few more months before trying again.

[Hermite15]

would be more interesting to post your specs, OS, service packs etc... there's something wrong either with your Windows setup, or with the fact that you upgraded directly from 4.8 to 5.0 It would have been wiser to browse the forums first to find out that most failures with V5 occur like that. There's one thing you can do, uninstall Avast completely using the removal tool >>> http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility , then reboot and reinstall V5 from scratch.

[kjacobs]

This machine is a dual core AMD Athlon 64X2 4400+ with 2GB ram. Running Windows XP Pro SP2. With Avast 4.8...it screams right along. With version 5 it seemed more sluggish, especially during the scan. I can do without all the eye candy if it makes for a faster running program. Not sure why the scan presets did not work. But I also loaded version 5 fresh on another machine at home with similar machine slowing effects. That machine is not as fast as this one, but was a brand new fresh Win XP install without 4.8 loaded. It also seemed  to noticeably slow down. I have not checked it for scan presets, yet.

[Vlk]

The first scan with v5 will be considerably slower because of the "persistent cache" being populated (which is a process that includes checking of digital signatures of all files on your hard drive, plus other lengthy things).

All subsequent scans should be much faster though.

And the same applies to the on-access scanner. Once the cache is built, no files will be rescanned.


Thanks
Vlk

[kjacobs]

OK...that explains the slow initial scan. Why do the scan presets and scan progress, etc. not show up? Is there no way to stop or pause a scan?

[Vlk]

Why do the scan presets and scan progress, etc. not show up?

Regarding the scan progress indicator.The predefined scans start with a rootkit scan (a quick rootkit scan in case of the Scan Scan, and a deep rootkit scan in case of the Full Scan). Unfortunately, at this time, the rootkit scans in avast do not support reporting of progress, so typically, the progress indicator will stay at 0% for a few minutes after starting a scan...

Is there no way to stop or pause a scan?

This one is strange (and not reproducible here). The scan controls should work just fine, even if in the middle of the rootkit scan...


Thanks
Vlk

[Hermite15]

OK...that explains the slow initial scan. Why do the scan presets and scan progress, etc. not show up? Is there no way to stop or pause a scan?

read (or re-read) my last post again >>> how a V5 install can fail, and how it can succeed...

[kjacobs]

AHA!

I decided to try a complete uninstall first of 4.8. Then rebooted and installed V5....now I have the scan presets and stop/pauses buttons.

So, it appears that V5 does not necessary like to install over the top of 4.8....

Explain the rootkit scan...is that a scan at boot time?

[Hermite15]

So, it appears that V5 does not necessary like to install over the top of 4.8....

exactly, that was my point in my first post

ps: the rootkit scan is just a scan... scanning rootkits ... nothing to do with boot time scans.
 If you want to learn about rootkits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit

[kjacobs]

OK...that was about as clear as mud....and also sounded very malicious. Might be better in the future to explain it in simple terms and be done with it....LOL