operation/utility needed to turn off/on all Avast processes ???

[JohnnyBob]

 
I'm running the latest Avast version 4.5.549 with XP Home (SP2). Note that I don't use Avast's Instant Messaging, P2P, or Outlook/Exchange providers, only the Internet Mail, Network Shield, and Standard Shield.

I'd like to be able to kill all Avast processes (for game playing and other purposes), then be able to turn them back on. Is there any easy way? I could turn them off one at a time from Windows Task Manager or XP Admin Services console, but that's not neat/quick. What I'd like to have is a single mouse click to kill all of the AVAST processes, then restart all of them - quickly & easily. (I found such a utility for AVG7free, so expect it should be possible for AVAST too.)

Of course the ashSimpl.exe process is only running if the Simple User Interface is opened. Otherwise...

Stopping On-Access Protection via the systray icon (rightclick popup menu) doesn't do the trick. It kills the Internet Mail provider process (ashMaiSv.exe), but the following three processes continue to run nevertheless:
ashDisp.exe
ashServ.exe
AswUpdSv.exe

Maybe someone has written a little utility to do this trick for Avast. If so, reference appreciated. (I found such a utility for AVG, but I can't use AVG because of their chronic update problems.)
 

[My apology if this has been discussed here previously. I'm a newbie, and have read a few of the pages, but there is just too much! This forum needs a "search" operation to be able to locate messages in such an enormous cache...]

[Eddy]

Is there any problem when you play a game and Avast is running? If so what problem?
What do you think to gain with shutting down Avast?

Disabling Avast for a game is not advised, it only compromise the security of your system.

[JohnnyBob]

Yes, it slows down my computer, and the speed is very important for the game - calculations of the best move in the game of chess. The slower the computer, the longer it takes to make the calculation. The slowdown is only of the order of 10-20%, however that is significant when you realize that each of my chess calculations run for 12 hours or more. So it will take me an extra hour or two to run each of the chess computations. My chess analysis productivity is significantly reduced thereby. I need (must!) be able to turn off all unnecessary processes, including anti-virus and firewall. Note that much of my chess analysis is done offline when those protections are certainly not needed.
 

[Eddy]

I don't see any reason to shutdown Avast, you can simply put the chess application to the ignore list. That should solve it.

btw, what chess application is this? I used to play chess myself several years ago.

[igor]

Are you saying that when you stop all avast! resident providers using "Stopping On-Access Protection" from the tray icon, it still slows down your Chess program by any measurable ratio? Sorry, but I can hardly believe this...

What does the Task Manager say about the CPU time spent by the processes afterwards?

[JohnnyBob]

Are you saying that when you stop all avast! resident providers using "Stopping On-Access Protection" from the tray icon, it still slows down your Chess program by any measurable ratio? Sorry, but I can hardly believe this...

What does the Task Manager say about the CPU time spent by the processes afterwards?

Yes.

Task Manager always says my chess application is using 99% of processor time, but that is not the complete story. The truth is told by my chess software which constantly displays the kilonodes per second (kN/s) that are being calculated for the chessboard position in question. The slower the computer, the lower the kN/s number, and the longer it will take to complete the computation. It doesn't lie. It has to do with the processor's MMX register among others but I don't know the details.

So I must have an easy way to kill all Avast processes, or I will not continue to use it.

[JohnnyBob]

I don't see any reason to shutdown Avast, you can simply put the chess application to the ignore list. That should solve it.

btw, what chess application is this? I used to play chess myself several years ago.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try, although it may take awhile to run the tests in my spare time (a few days). However I'm not sure that I know all of the proper locations to "ignore", because it's somewhat complicated software!? It may utilize/access some fundamental system/memory processes, for example it provides for variable user allocation of RAM for the computations.

Chessbase software from Germany: titles such as Fritz 8, Junior 8, Shredder 8. It's the best chess software in the world for PC's, and rivals even what mainframes can do.

Bottomline: I must have some easy way to kill all Avast processes, or I won't continue to use it.  

[CharleyO]

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Try right clicking the "a" ball and selecting ... Stop On-Access Protection. Please do not do this if you are playing chess on-line. Otherwise, this should be safe to do.

*

[JohnnyBob]

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Try right clicking the "a" ball and selecting ... Stop On-Access Protection. Please do not do this if you are playing chess on-line. Otherwise, this should be safe to do.

*

I tried that the very first thing, but it doesn't work.  :'( As I tried to explain above, that leaves 3 Avast! processes still running in Windows Task Manager (Control-Alt-Delete, Processes tab). Is that normal, or a malfunction of my installation?

I've tried manually stopping those processes via Windows Task Manager, and it worked OK.  Nothing bad happened.   That's not too difficult to do, but not as neat & easy as I would prefer. It should be possible to code a simple little utility of some kind to do that task with a single click of the mouse, but I'm not a programmer. I feel that option should have been provided by the Avast! virus programmers, but it isn't.

After doing so, it seemed practically impossible to start Avast! again properly again without rebooting my computer. That should also be possible for a proper utility/operation with a single mouse click, but it isn't.

[RejZoR]

Ok JohnnyBob, i continued my work on tool avast! External Control so it will be compatible with avast! 4.5. It will also include feature to fully disable avast! in just a click. Also enabling it or auto-restarting it,plus many other cool features.
I hope i'll be able to release it soon

[JohnnyBob]

Ok JohnnyBob, i continued my work on tool avast! External Control so it will be compatible with avast! 4.5. It will also include feature to fully disable avast! in just a click. Also enabling it or auto-restarting it,plus many other cool features.
I hope i'll be able to release it soon

Hey RejZoR!
You da man I been lookin fer...  
That would be a nice Christmas present.  
Cheerio,
JB

[RejZoR]

Well there is only one problem so far.
ashServ.exe cannot be shut down (thats good on other hand). So you can shut down all other processes except ashServ.exe

[Eddy]

It has to do with the processor's MMX register among others but I don't know the details.

I already found this weird. Since MMX is only used in the older Intel cpu's (Introduced in 1997 and used the last time in the 233mhz cpu). So I downloaded the chess application (lite) and had a look at it. Somehow it looked familiar to me so I start digging. And guess what, I already had that game. It was in one of the boxes where I keep my old Windows 3.x stuff.

I would say time for a more recent chess game. This one was never ment to run on XP. And if you still have a MMX cpu, it is time for a new system as well.

[igor]

As far as I know, Fritz 8 is the latest version - certainly not for Win 3.x.

Additionally, I really don't think it has anything to do with MMX (which, btw, is in every today's CPU - and utilized quite a lot).

I am still saying that if all the avast! resident providers are stopped, avast! cannot slow down the computer. The only possible explanation I can think of is that Fritz somehow controls the memory it uses for its computation according to the amount of free (physical?) memory, and it computes "slower" when less memory is available. When avast! processes are "running", they occupy some memory; so, if my theory is right (and I have no idea if it is - I have really just made it up to explain the effect somehow), it may be the reason why Fritz shows less speed.
I'm not saying that such a "memory" optimization would be a bad thing - on the other hand, it goes somehow agains the idea of virtual memory... and might result in effects described (slowdown for no real reason; the unnecessary memory would be simply swapped out normally).
Again, I repeat, it's just a theory I'm trying to explain how such an effect could occur.

[RejZoR]

Such programs are floating point intensive,so memory usage doesn't make much difference. Belive me,there would be no difference in end time with or without avast!. Maybe 5 minutes at most if you use your system while calculating.