Hi Folks,
My sister's laptop suffered an unknown trauma and I have managed to get it working after System Restore and a trick or two. However, Avast is stuck, won't run, won't restart, can't upgrade and can't uninstall either through Control Panel or Ccleaner because it thinks it's running! I have downloaded an up-to-date version but it won't install, not unsurprisingly.
Can anyone help me get it off the PC so's I can re-install it, please?
TIA,
Steve
Hi Steve
One thing to remember about "system restore"...it truly is not a 'real' restore such as would be
restoring a partition/disk image of a known stable system byte for byte back to the time one makes
an image. System restore simply restores the windows registry and some modified/deleted files, and
in some cases can re-infect a PC because malware can be part of a system restore point.
It is likely if you just used system restore, that other potential problems were 'restored' while possibly
removing only effected registry entries, but still having corrupt files remain on your sisters system. For
future consideration, I suggest a free "drive image" program...there are several...such as Macrium Reflect Free,
Drive Image XML, Clonezilla, or the built in windows backup and imaging if she is using Vista or Windows 7.
You do not mention what OS she uses. The uninstall utility as advised by Asyn should do the job as far as you being
able to perform a clean installation of Avast!, but keep in mind there can still be some file corruption on your sisters
laptop. If it is left over malware of any kind, hopefully a clean install of Avast! will catch any remnants and return the system
to some stability, but I would definitely advise at the very least, if she is using Vista or Windows 7, to use the windows backup
and create a system image onto an external hard drive for safe keeping in the event she has similar problems in the future.
This would create a full image once she has a stable system, and can then be used to do a true 'restore' using the windows
install disk to boot from, which would take a lot less time and would restore her system to exactly the same state as when the
image was created.
Just a thought.
I hope you get her back up and running stable soon.
All my best!
Jim
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