Leave Avast 6 prof sheilds up when installing programs?

[AnnieMS]

Advice at one time was to temporarily turn off av protection when installing software and some programs listed that step in their instructions. More recent advice has been to leave your av running - proper programs aren't supposed to trigger av alarms on install.

Is that still current advice? I had to reinstall winxp tab ed and now I have to install firefox, malwarebytes, word, open office, scanner software, etc. I upgraded to 6 prof from 5 when I reinstalled avast. It has the right-click option to temporarily turn off the shields. I'm using Word 2003, which is an old, finicky program and I wondered if current av protection might interfere w/ its install.

[Gargamel360]

No, you really shouldn't need to turn off protection.  This is, as you seem to already know, dated advice.  And the time you surely want protection on is when you are downloading/installing. 

Mind you, this doesn't mean it can't still happen in rare cases, but I would always leave protection on, then if it happened to ever cause a conflict, proceed from there.

[DavidCo]

I agree with Gargamel360
Microsoft did issue a KB about exclusions that is worth a read

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158

But I have not had any issues using Avast without these exclusions
Other AV's however........

[AnnieMS]

Thanks Gargamel360 and DavidCo

I'll leave the shields running when I install. As pointed out, when downloading/installing is one of the times one wants one's av shields active. I thought it might prevent some of Word's "why is it doing that" behavior to install w/out the AV running. The link provided by DavidCo recommends turning off some scanning in an active directory environment, which my computer is not. If I end up reinstalling Word at some point for poor behavior, I'll try it w/out shields.

[Gargamel360]

NP, glad to help

[Joe S]

I'm in the minority on this but sometimes it is necessary on complex software. One is VMware Workstation. If I don't shut off the Guest OS Avast VMware tools will not install properly. Frequently it's the virtual video or sound card that doesn't work. I think Acronis True Image or Disk Director was another that Avast needed to be turned off to install properly.
Joe

[SafeSurf]

If I end up reinstalling Word at some point for poor behavior, I'll try it w/out shields.

Word had been known to have malware in it, especially the older versions, so this is one case you would definitely want to keep your Avast shields on.  You should not get a conflict with Word anyway since this is not a security software.  But to be on the safe side, I would keep your shields on for protection.