Avast Free ---Protected or not protected... That is the question?

[Georges7]

Well, my question about the Security Action Center is relevant when you just booted the system and you have not manually restarted Avast service.

What I'm trying to help you identify is whether the problem is avast itself, or is Windows Security Center that has some problem recognizing the real status of Avast.

When you say "restart the service", what exact status the service had before? Do you mean that you stop it and start it again? Or it was already stopped without your intervention, so you started it manually (as opposed to REstarted)?

Bonjour
everything is looking fine before except for the message stating that not protected , all the rest is green .
the main panel is green wall to wall, the Windows Security Center is green
When opening the services, the avast service is on automatic and working normally,
I simply restart the service  and the icon text message on the notification bar change from not protected to your system is protected..  That why , I ask myself , am I protected or not.... that is the question?

[Dch48]

XP has always been notorious for system tray icon problems. It tries to load too many at once and sometimes some will not show up at all or not be fully functional when they do. One solution might be what Norel suggested. To make avast load after other services. The tray icon is really just a shortcut to the GUI anyway so delaying that at start won't affect your protection at all. Another solution is to get a utility called StartupDelayer. With that, you can set the order in which things load and put delays in for each one you want. I have tried it before on an XP system and it works very well. I was having problems with the Comodo icon never showing up after they changed versions past 3.14. The only solution was to use the delayer utility.

Whether or not the tray icon shows up or reports status correctly really has nothing to do with your protection if everything else says it's working as it should.

[CraigB]

Are there any startups you might be able to shut down through CCleaner that aren't neccessary whenever you boot the system, how many processes do you have running in task manager ? just thinking it might be related to limited ram  

[ady4um]

I wonder, instead of delaying anything, or changing startup items, if the user simply waits a couple of minutes without re-starting the service again maybe the tray icon will appear correctly ("Your system is secured")?

[Dch48]

I wonder, instead of delaying anything, or changing startup items, if the user simply waits a couple of minutes without re-starting the service again maybe the tray icon will appear correctly ("Your system is secured")?

It probably won't change but opening the GUI through the desktop icon will probably fix the tray icon. That was one way I could make the Comodo icon show up when I was having that problem. Another way was to make the startup not be "silent". In other words letting the splash screen show at boot time. That takes an edit of the startup item in the registry to remove the silent load modifier.

It is strictly an XP problem, not an Avast one.

[ady4um]

@Dch48,

I don't discard that your suggestion may work for this case, but let's be clear: One thing is a tray icon not being displayed; another one is the tray icon saying that the system is "unsecured" while all the components in the GUI are reported as correct / OK / updated and the Security Center is all OK (green).

I think we should leave this case for Avast Team.
 

[Dch48]

The icon not displaying the status correctly may mean that it's being loaded too fast and not reporting all of the shields correctly because they haven't fully loaded yet. If this is the case then it's just another XP tray icon glitch. The fact that manually reloading the item fixes things would seem to confirm that. The StartupDelayer utility would very likely remove the problem once it was configured correctly.

[CraigB]

I think we should leave this case for Avast Team.
 

I think we should wait for the OP to at least try the last few suggestion's before going the next step.

[Dch48]

I think we should leave this case for Avast Team.
 

I think we should wait for the OP to at least try the last few suggestion's before going the next step.

Yes, they can't hurt anything if they are tried.

[ady4um]

Sure, but I would thought that the other change I already suggested (avast > settings > troubleshooting > "load avast service only after other system services") and waiting a couple of minutes instead of restarting the service manually, would be enough (I mean with no need to use additional tools for the delay nor manual "tricks").

If I understood correctly (but maybe I didn't) the setting was already tried by the OP, while "just waiting" was not reported yet.

In any case, feedback from the OP would be a good thing now.

[CraigB]

Sure, but I would thought that the other change I already suggested (avast > settings > troubleshooting > "load avast service only after other system services") and waiting a couple of minutes instead of restarting the service manually, would be enough (I mean with no need to use additional tools for the delay nor manual "tricks").

If I understood correctly (but maybe I didn't) the setting was already tried by the OP, while "just waiting" was not reported yet.

In any case, feedback from the OP would be a good thing now.

I think stopping unneccessary startup's would be the benificial thing to try imo as it not only affects avast but the whole system functionality, loading avast after everything else should be a last resort.
The OP already has CCleaner so the additional tools are already there for there benifit so why not use it  and where talking about stopping unneccessary startups to improve performance not delaying them and these so called tricks as you call them is no more a trick than what you suggested by delaying avast.

Now if you can just refrain from a response untill the OP has replied about the suggested solutions then everything might be fixed hopfully without continuing to have to get the last post comments in which is just confusing and clogging up the thread.

[Dvakat]

I am having the problem. Tray icon says not secured but everything else says it is. This just started in the last week. Avast has been updated,reinstalled,repaired to no avail. I ran the eicor test and it worked just as it should. I am a basic user with only a little computer knowledge. Can anyone help? Using Windows XP(fully updated), latest version Avast, english and in United states.

[CraigB]

I am having the problem. Tray icon says not secured but everything else says it is. This just started in the last week. Avast has been updated,reinstalled,repaired to no avail. I ran the eicor test and it worked just as it should. I am a basic user with only a little computer knowledge. Can anyone help? Using Windows XP(fully updated), latest version Avast, english and in United states.

Have you tried going through the options discussed in this thread ?

[Georges7]

Bonjour

ah I not alone anymore....  Its look like  an update is doing something since a couple of weeks.

Also, when restarting the computer pressing  start then  restart  or something like that in English, (I am using the French version) the not protected text for the icon appears once every 2 to 4 times.
I plan to add more RAM, presently using a 1466MHZ 512M RAM on XP.
My computer knowledge is above average , started with an TI-99 if your old enough to known what I am talking about beginning last century lolo

[YoKenny]

I plan to add more RAM, presently using a 1466MHZ 512M RAM on XP.

I upgraded my XP Pro system to 1.5GB and XP now loads a lot faster and avast! works a lot better.