Avast free version problem

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General Mailbox

Greetings,
OS WinXP Pro, Ram 512, CPU 800Mhz HP machine.
Within 1 week after installing the free version of Avast, I discovered that
my AOL and Yahoo radios weren't working. Also a .dll file was missing for my
Sound Forge program so it wouldn't load. To localize the problem, I was
able to System Restore to when these things were working. After installing
Avast, I performed all maintenance events (clear cache,temp folders etc, ran
spybot & adware, ran registry cleaner, defragged, and full system
"thorough" scan with Avast). While now the radios and Sound Forge work,
there is still an problem with Yahoo preference setting for "Calling &
Audio" section where my sound card is not showing and the cursor remains as
a hour glass while hovering over the selections for audio drivers. So, even
with this one deficiency, I wanted to see if Avast was a problem. I
installed it again, as restoration point was before the initial installation
of Avast, and immediately checked the radios and sound editor pgm. They are
still working. I then ran a full thorough scan which resulted in Yahoo
radio not working, but left AOL radio and sound editor alone this time. I
reinstalled Yahoo IM in hopes to replace any missing file, which did not do
any good. Upon a reboot of my system, and only once since this testing, I
came to a BSOD stating:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer.
If this is the first time that you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer.If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:
Check to make sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is
identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check
with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.
Check with you hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable
BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need
to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
computer, press F8 to select Advance Startup Options, and then
select Safe Mode.
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000008E (0x80000004,0x804D4D02,0xF3F46130,0x00000000)

I again restored to a manual point when all was working except the sound
card selection in YIM. For some reason, my other 4 or 5 restore points
disappeared, so I'm glad I made a manual one just before installing Avast a
second time. I have about 4GB of free space on the C drive.

Has anyone heard, or experienced, Avast removing or corrupting files without
it/them being listed as infections or logged?
I read back in this group for a couple of hours and going through a website
recommended for AV-comparisons. Avast is pretty good at detection rate, slow
at on-demand scan rate, and has a high false alarm rate for the unknowns.
However, it still ranks high and is free with no popups. In the past 3 or
so years, I haven't received much in infections. I rarely go outside my box
*smiles* of trusted sites and find that paying CA lots of money isn't worth
it anymore. The computer is behind a router now also.

Thank you for any response you have.
B.rgds,
Kevin
 
What I did was uninstall Avast and ran an on-line scan from Trend Micro.It
found about 5 adware infections. I believe they were all on my 2nd hard
drive. This is a little troublesome as I thought Lavasoft Ad-Aware program
was really good as many recommended it. However, it could be that Ad-Aware
is set to check the C drive only. I'll have to investigate. I then ran
Symantec on-line virus scan and WebRoot spyware scan, which both of these
resulted in a report of a clean machine.
However, damage (corrupted file(s)) is already done. YIM radio is now
displaying all stations as premium + stations and none will load.
I again did a system restore and the radio situation did not change. What
did change was that at least one file I had in my C:\download folder was
missing. I reverted "undo" the system restore and the missing file came
back.
I generally spend a lot of time figuring things out and usually with help
from people on these newsgroups. If someone here does not know, or suspect,
the problem here for me to check on, I'll likely backup my downloads and
documents and reinstall the OS. To save me time in the future, I will start
a regular system backup routine. An investment into an external hard drive
with backup software would be nice. It's just not the smartest move I can
make since being bed ridden for most of the last 14 months thus being out of
work.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.
Best to all of you!
Kevin

| Could be a rootkit, checkout these links
|
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2006-070513-1305
-99&tabid=1
|
|
|
| --
|
| Newsgroup Trolls. Read about mine here http://www.pcbutts1.com/downloads
| The list grows. Leythos the stalker http://www.leythosthestalker.com,
David
| H. Lipman, Max M Wachtell III aka What's in a Name?, Fitz,
| Rhonda Lea Kirk, Meat Plow, F Kwatu F, George Orwell
|
|
|
| | > Greetings,
| > OS WinXP Pro, Ram 512, CPU 800Mhz HP machine.
| > Within 1 week after installing the free version of Avast, I discovered
| > that
| > my AOL and Yahoo radios weren't working. Also a .dll file was missing
for
| > my
| > Sound Forge program so it wouldn't load. To localize the problem, I was
| > able to System Restore to when these things were working. After
| > installing
| > Avast, I performed all maintenance events (clear cache,temp folders etc,
| > ran
| > spybot & adware, ran registry cleaner, defragged, and full system
| > "thorough" scan with Avast). While now the radios and Sound Forge work,
| > there is still an problem with Yahoo preference setting for "Calling &
| > Audio" section where my sound card is not showing and the cursor remains
| > as
| > a hour glass while hovering over the selections for audio drivers. So,
| > even
| > with this one deficiency, I wanted to see if Avast was a problem. I
| > installed it again, as restoration point was before the initial
| > installation
| > of Avast, and immediately checked the radios and sound editor pgm. They
| > are
| > still working. I then ran a full thorough scan which resulted in Yahoo
| > radio not working, but left AOL radio and sound editor alone this time.
I
| > reinstalled Yahoo IM in hopes to replace any missing file, which did not
| > do
| > any good. Upon a reboot of my system, and only once since this testing,
I
| > came to a BSOD stating:
| >
| > A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent
| > damage
| > to your computer.
| > If this is the first time that you've seen this Stop error screen,
| > restart your computer.If this screen appears again, follow
| > these steps:
| > Check to make sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is
| > identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check
| > with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.
| > Check with you hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable
| > BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need
| > to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
| > computer, press F8 to select Advance Startup Options, and then
| > select Safe Mode.
| > Technical information:
| > *** STOP: 0x0000008E (0x80000004,0x804D4D02,0xF3F46130,0x00000000)
| >
| > I again restored to a manual point when all was working except the sound
| > card selection in YIM. For some reason, my other 4 or 5 restore points
| > disappeared, so I'm glad I made a manual one just before installing
Avast
| > a
| > second time. I have about 4GB of free space on the C drive.
| >
| > Has anyone heard, or experienced, Avast removing or corrupting files
| > without
| > it/them being listed as infections or logged?
| > I read back in this group for a couple of hours and going through a
| > website
| > recommended for AV-comparisons. Avast is pretty good at detection rate,
| > slow
| > at on-demand scan rate, and has a high false alarm rate for the
unknowns.
| > However, it still ranks high and is free with no popups. In the past 3
or
| > so years, I haven't received much in infections. I rarely go outside my
| > box
| > *smiles* of trusted sites and find that paying CA lots of money isn't
| > worth
| > it anymore. The computer is behind a router now also.
| >
| > Thank you for any response you have.
| > B.rgds,
| > Kevin
| >
| >
| >
|
|
 
Try Superantispyware as I do on XP. k35454.


Greetings,
OS WinXP Pro, Ram 512, CPU 800Mhz HP machine.
Within 1 week after installing the free version of Avast, I discovered that
my AOL and Yahoo radios weren't working. Also a .dll file was missing for my
Sound Forge program so it wouldn't load. To localize the problem, I was
able to System Restore to when these things were working. After installing
Avast, I performed all maintenance events (clear cache,temp folders etc, ran
spybot & adware, ran registry cleaner, defragged, and full system
"thorough" scan with Avast). While now the radios and Sound Forge work,
there is still an problem with Yahoo preference setting for "Calling &
Audio" section where my sound card is not showing and the cursor remains as
a hour glass while hovering over the selections for audio drivers. So, even
with this one deficiency, I wanted to see if Avast was a problem. I
installed it again, as restoration point was before the initial installation
of Avast, and immediately checked the radios and sound editor pgm. They are
still working. I then ran a full thorough scan which resulted in Yahoo
radio not working, but left AOL radio and sound editor alone this time. I
reinstalled Yahoo IM in hopes to replace any missing file, which did not do
any good. Upon a reboot of my system, and only once since this testing, I
came to a BSOD stating:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer.
If this is the first time that you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer.If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:
Check to make sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is
identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check
with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.
Check with you hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable
BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need
to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
computer, press F8 to select Advance Startup Options, and then
select Safe Mode.
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000008E (0x80000004,0x804D4D02,0xF3F46130,0x00000000)

I again restored to a manual point when all was working except the sound
card selection in YIM. For some reason, my other 4 or 5 restore points
disappeared, so I'm glad I made a manual one just before installing Avast a
second time. I have about 4GB of free space on the C drive.

Has anyone heard, or experienced, Avast removing or corrupting files without
it/them being listed as infections or logged?
I read back in this group for a couple of hours and going through a website
recommended for AV-comparisons. Avast is pretty good at detection rate, slow
at on-demand scan rate, and has a high false alarm rate for the unknowns.
However, it still ranks high and is free with no popups. In the past 3 or
so years, I haven't received much in infections. I rarely go outside my box
*smiles* of trusted sites and find that paying CA lots of money isn't worth
it anymore. The computer is behind a router now also.

Thank you for any response you have.
B.rgds,
Kevin
 
| > The computer is behind a router now also. | > Thank you for any
response you have. | > B.rgds,
| > Kevin
| >
Click to expand...
* * *
Kevin,

This is a better radio website than Yahoo/AOL...
www.live-radio.net/info.shtml

Sorry, but AOL anything in my book is not very good... I have run AVG
Free anti-virus for years without much problem...

Saw this link today, and I liked the rootkit freeby, or what is says...
Item 2 Page 2
www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9026125&source=rss_topic17


I went with a Linux distro, to solve the many window problems, that was my
solution...

JR the postman
 
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