Author Topic: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!  (Read 4393 times)

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lew

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Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« on: April 07, 2012, 09:30:11 PM »
About a month ago my free Avast! stopped updating (it was right when I was notified that a new version was available; I tried to update the program, but it just said "Initializing...." for hours and nothing ever happened. Since I have not been able to update the program OR the virus definitions manually, it's always just "Initializing..." forever). Since it's been over a month without getting updated, I figured I'd uninstall it. Nope, won't work. I keep getting an error and it won't uninstall. Okay....I'll just download the newest version off the website and install that one. Nope. More errors.

Here's the errors I received when trying to install the newest version:

avast! Setup Fatal Error: Error reading product data from "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5\setup\". Setup cannot continue.

Setup Selfextract: An error 0 (00000000) has occured. Last performed operation was: spawning


Can anyone help? As of right now it's useless, yet I can't get rid of it or try reinstalling it.... Frustrating.

Offline DavidR

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Re: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2012, 09:33:15 PM »
It would probably be best to do a clean install of the latest version:
- Download the latest version of avast, 7.0.1426 http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (if you didn't save your last download). Use that when you reinstall.

- Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, aswClear.exe find it here and save it to your HDD (it has uninstall tools for 5.x, 6.0.x and 7.0.x).
  • 1. Now uninstall avast! (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.
  • 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility from safe mode, first for 6.x if previously installed and then for 7.0, once complete reboot into normal mode.
  • 3. install the latest version, reboot.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.3.6108 (build 24.3.8975.762) UI 1.0.801/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

lew

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Re: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2012, 10:57:49 PM »
It worked! Thank you so much.

Offline DavidR

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Re: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2012, 12:13:20 AM »
No problem, glad I could help.

Welcome to the forums.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.3.6108 (build 24.3.8975.762) UI 1.0.801/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

Bjmr

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Re: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2012, 03:39:54 PM »
I have the same problem as the above .. but I have NO idea how to get into safe mode and then am worried I won't get back again!  I have Windows XP .. I need step by step instructions if you don't mind  :)  Thanks

Offline DavidR

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Re: Cannot update, uninstall, or reinstall....help!
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2012, 04:17:09 PM »
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.3.6108 (build 24.3.8975.762) UI 1.0.801/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security