Windows XP Freeze

[madtrix]

I am posting this in case someone else runs into it. I am working on my second Windows XP system this week that is freezing when you try to run anything on it after boot. I believe the problem is caused by an old version of Avast, in my case Avast version 6.0.1289.0.

The symptom is after Windows XP boots if you try to start any program the system freezes/hangs and you can't do anything.

To see if it is Avast boot into safe mode, go to Control Panel...System...Hardware Tab...start Device Manager. In Device Manager click on View and select Show Hidden Devices. If you see "avast! Network Shield Support" with a yellow exclamation point beside it your problem is probably caused by an old version of Avast.

To fix it go to Add or Remove Programs and uninstall Avast while you are in Safe Mode.

Reboot and your system should be fine except you have no antivirus. Download and install the current version of Avast and you are back in business.

The PC that I worked on yesterday had been running fine up until about 10 days ago when it just quit. The one I am looking at now has not been used in a while and I was checking it and found the same problem.

My problem is fixed, I have only posted this in case someone else has this trouble. I suspected lots of other things (like viruses and malware) before I accidentally stumbled on Avast.

[DavidR]

Given that the latest version of avast is 7.0.1426 and the version of avast6 that you have wasn't the last version of avast6 before avast7. I'm not sure if this will be relevant or most.

So I would suggest a clean install of avast7:
- 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.

[villandra]

I'm getting blue screen errors caused apparently by doing certain things involving my web browsers, such as try to use TV Guide or open a pdf file, since I somehow got Avast to run my browsers in the sandbox.   I can't get AVAST to STOP running my browsers in the sandbox.   I removed them from the list of things it virtualizes and they come right back.    Adding my browsers to the list of things Avast NEVER virtualizes didn't help.

I e-mailed Avast support how to stop my browsers from running in the sand box, four days ago, and they didn't even deign to answer.   

[DavidR]

Please start a New Topic of your own here http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2.0 (click the New topic button at the top of the page see image) as it is unrelated to the original subject and will just confuse the topic and we will try to help.