"Screen greying" VNC issue

[IWRConsultancy]

Avast Pro 5.118, XP SP3, remotely managed via VNC. (TightVNC is used, but I don't think other versions respond any differently)
 
Issue is that certain Avast notifications 'dim the screen' rather like Vista's UAE/UAC, and overlay a blue popup onto the whole desktop. As with UAE, this breaks the remote connection.

I can prevent this behaviour by turning off the self-protection module, but that's not an ideal fix as it makes it trivially easy to stop the Avast service. What's needed is a way to turn of this screen-dimming feature without disabling all program-protection.

Any suggestions?

[Vladimyr]

I've not used TightVNC but have long used UltraVNC RC18 which has an optional video hook driver that intercepts everything (except for old GPUs which don't have hardware shading).
I have no experience with later versions (never needed to upgrade).

[IWRConsultancy]

I've not used TightVNC but have long used UltraVNC RC18 which has an optional video hook driver that intercepts everything (except for old GPUs which don't have hardware shading).

Using the mirage driver, which I believe is the same one that Ultra uses. Haven't actually tried UltraVNC, but I know Ultra is no better with Vista/7's UAE so assumed the same here.

Then again, I'm not sure if virtual machines have hardware shading. Probably not, I would have thought.
 
In any case, a simple way to disable this troublesome feature would be a lot easier than having to extensively modify a functioning remote-access setup.

[Vladimyr]

With UltraVNC you need the hook driver to see any Windows XP mouse-over info or yellow balloons so the issue with avast! is not an isolated one.

I have had no success with UltraVNC on Vista. TeamViewer is good for free non-commercial use.

[IWRConsultancy]

With UltraVNC you need the hook driver to see any Windows XP mouse-over info or yellow balloons so the issue with avast! is not an isolated one.

No, this isn't the same issue. When the situation I describe arises, your connection gets abruptly terminated, and you cannot reconnect whilst the screen is grayed. One saving grace is that Avast times-out the dialog, whereas UAE does not. If you accidentally trigger Microsoft's UAE during a remote session you have no option but to call someone onsite, or else get-out the car and contribute to climate change.

But then, on office Win7 machines you can at least turn UAE off, and use other security measures. Plus, XP is thankfully free of grayscreens. Normally, that is. Turning off Avast's program protection in-toto  -the only workaround I can find in its case- seems too drastic as it leaves the whole AV suite open to being disabled.

BTW I tried the latest Mirage driver, which claims to be Win7 compatible.. and it's no different. At least,not on a VMWare VM.

-and while I could look-for a replacement for TightVNC, that would most likely mean a lot of testing and evaluation, possibly just to uncover other shortcomings. UltraVNC claim their version to be Win7-ready, but the small print says 'With UAE turned off' Ho-hum. At a guess it has exactly the same problem.

[Vladimyr]

Maybe it's a different issue. Shots below (like the 2 in previous post) are from an XP SP3 machine accessed remotely via UltraVNC. Grey screen is no problem.

[IWRConsultancy]

Maybe it's a different issue.

No, this is the same issue. Tested with latest UltraVNC, removed the Mirage driver and installed Ultra's framebuffer driver.  Confirmed that driver is being used. Unfortunately, screen-dim still throws the connection off. So, no joy.

As you suggested, it may be due to differences in harwdare. Test was on a VMWare Server VM of XP SP3. I may do a test on actual hardware when I get a chance. Though, if results depend on hardware type that would be something of a lottery anyway, and short of testing numerous models it would prove nothing.

I originally thought that the screen-graying (secure desktop) only happened when suspending protection, but I've since discovered it can happen in other circumstances too, such as suspicious behaviour detection. Unfortunately that makes it far a more serious problem than I originally thought. IME you don't have to suspend AV all that often, so that aspect could be lived-with, BUT if a simple registry-change being detected grays the screen and kicks the VNC connection off, that is completely unworkable.

Thx for suggestions anyway, but it looks as if I'm gonna order NOD32 instead. If screen-graying is to be a compulsory feature of Avast (even on XP!) then it's simply not suitable for our systems.