Dave-H

This may well become a moot point soon, as MS are saying that all Skype version 7 versions will no longer be supported soon, which probably means that none of them will connect! This will be an end to Skype Desktop on XP, as Skype 8 will not work at all on XP. I don't like Skype 8 anyway (I installed it briefly on Windows 10 to try it) as it doesn't keep all of your conversation history as previous version did, it's more like the Android, iOS and Windows 10 apps.

OK, I did do it (on Christmas Day, how sad is that! ) Step 1) Use "avastclear.exe" to get rid of every file, folder, setting and registry change made by Avast. I've run that many times before, did it in Safe Mode, hopefully all now clear. Step 2) Reboot. Check! Step 3) Go to Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and make sure that "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" and "Terminal Services" are set to "Automatic" and have started. If they are disabled, make sure to enable and start them. Background Intelligent Transfer Service was on manual and not running. I set it to Automatic and ran it, after that it did then seem to be running all the time even after reboots. However, I've now noticed that it has set itself back to "manual" again, although it is running at the moment. Isn't it a service that's normally on manual, and just runs when it's needed? Terminal Services was on Automatic and was and is running. Step 4) Make sure you have the latest .NET Framework and C++ Redistributables installed. If you don't, install them and reboot. I didn't have C++ Redistributable 2017 installed (14.16.27012.6). I installed it, and it replaced C++ Redistributable 2015 (14.0.24123.0), which I assume is correct. The 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2014 redistributables are also installed. I have all the .NET versions installed up to version 4.0 (which is the last for XP of course) all with their latest POSReady hack updates. Step 5) Apply the registry patch and reboot. Done! Step 6) Install Avast 18.8.2356 free using the installer provided making sure that you are running it as Administrator. Done, with the same result as before, AV Service not running (and won't run) and just an error message from the UI. There is no "run as administrator" option on XP of course, but I am the sole user and Administrator on the machine. I got an error message about Avast Secure Browser having had an unspecified install error, but I think that may be because it isn't XP compatible. Strange, because I would have thought that the installer would have known I was running XP and wouldn't have offered it! Step 7) Protection services may not start and you might have issues with the UI, but that's "normal" on some systems. Just give it some time and then reboot once again. Rebooted umpteen times, same result as expected I'm afraid! The machine is now taking a long time to start up, hanging on "Loading your personal settings" and taking much longer than normal for the desktop to load. Step 8) After you rebooted, open "avastsupport.exe" and run it. It's gonna automatically check the integrity of the installation and it should report everything with the word "SUCCESS" in green. If it doesn't, click "next". In the next screen, provide the email address of your account and write down all the steps you took before the error happened. This way, a new ticket is gonna be created, but this time it will report everything about your system (but with a bit of luck we won't get there). OK, did that. I have in fact already used this tool with Avast Support, but they didn't say that the result it sent to them told them anything useful. It did say there was a problem with the installation of course. Shall I send you the files it generated to see if you can see anything in them? Cheers, Dave. Oh, and Happy Christmas!

@FranceBB I just had my subscription to Avast Internet Security refunded as I couldn't get later versions to work on my machine, and was stuck with version 12. When the licence was revoked it reverted to the Free Antivirus version, and then immediately updated to the latest version 18.8 which doesn't work! Anyway, I do now have a log from the AV Service of 18.8, if it's of any use. You asked about it a while ago. [2018-12-23 19:29:29.203] [info ] [settings ] [ 656: 660] paths.ini_store configuration is empty, settings ini store folder to asw::instup::GetDataDirectory. [2018-12-23 19:30:17.546] [info ] [svcmain ] [ 656: 660] Installing CrashGuard global exception handler... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.546] [info ] [crashguard ] [ 656: 660] CrashGuard global exception handler installed [2018-12-23 19:30:17.546] [info ] [crashguard ] [ 656: 660] CrashGuard initialized successfully, external dumping enabled [2018-12-23 19:30:17.546] [info ] [crashguard ] [ 656: 660] Crash handler installed successfully process-wide from module 4194304 [2018-12-23 19:30:17.546] [info ] [svcmain ] [ 656: 660] Service starting up. [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Entering basInitLibrary... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Calling cmnbInit... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Calling CrashHandlerInstall... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [crashguard ] [ 656: 660] Crash handler is already resident in this process. Enabling only manual dumping from this binary. [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [crashguard ] [ 656: 660] CrashGuard initialized successfully, external dumping enabled [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Validating paths... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Initializing languages - getting ini... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Initializing languages - GetLocaleInfo... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Initializing languages - basCreateLanguagePath... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Initializing languages - basInitThreadLocale... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Initializing language paths... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.640] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Loading Base.dll... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.656] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Calling GetComputerName... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.656] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Calling InitTCPIP... [2018-12-23 19:30:17.656] [info ] [base_init ] [ 656: 660] Leaving basInitLibrary... [2018-12-23 19:30:32.656] [error ] [serviceapp ] [ 656: 660] failed to connect to service controller [2018-12-23 19:30:32.656] [info ] [svcmain ] [ 656: 660] Service shut down completely. [2018-12-23 19:30:32.656] [info ] [settings ] [ 656: 5224] WatchThread gracefully terminated. That's it, and it just repeats on every boot and if I try to start the service manually. The key line is obviously "failed to connect to service controller". What the "service controller" actually is I have no idea, and I couldn't find anything that really explains it anywhere. I think I will revert now to version 12 of the Free Antivirus. 18.9 is now supposed to be coming in January, which is my last hope unless the problem can be diagnosed. You said you had some test software I could try? Well now's the time if you have it! Cheers, Dave.

Fine here. The only anomaly I found with this IE update, off topic I know, is that Windows 8.1 did not have to be restarted after installing it, which is very unusual for an IE update! Both my Windows XP installations and my Windows 10 installation did have to be restarted, as I would expect.

7.36.0.150 is still working this morning. It turns out I already had the installer saved, as the "last official XP version", although 7.38.0.101 seems to be the last one which actually works on XP.

I just tried running Skype 7.38.0.101 and just got a message saying I wouldn't be allowed to log in any more unless I updated. Uh oh, I thought, this looks like the beginning of the end for Skype on Windows XP. I pressed the update button, and it appeared to download something quite large, which then said it had failed. I tried again with the same result. I then clicked on the "download manually" button and was taken to the Skype download page, which of course said I had to have at least Windows 7. I pressed the download button anyway just to see what happened, and it downloaded a file called SkypeSetupFullXp.exe. "Interesting" I thought, and ran it. It "updated" Skype, which then to my great surprise worked again. It turns out it's version 7.36.0.150, older than the one I had before! I'm now wondering if I should update it to 7.38.0.101 again (I have the offline installation file) or just leave it and see if it carries on working!

@Thomas S. @Mathwiz Thanks guys! Eudora uses its own certificates to connect to e-mail servers for receiving and sending, there is no problem with this side of things. It uses the certificate system in Windows to actually display messages though, when using the "Microsoft Viewer" option. Before I had HTTPSProxy installed, many images in messages would not display, and I was getting constant certificate error messages. Now it's much better, but messages from some sources take about 30 seconds to display, during which Eudora is completely frozen. After that they display perfectly, which is very puzzling! If I switch off the "Microsoft Viewer" option, so Eudora uses its internal viewer, they display instantly, but usually look awful!

Would this possibly help with my extremely slow display of some e-mails using Eudora? I already use @heinoganda's version of HTTPSProxy. Is this any different?

That's good to see, as it means that there is hope! When 18.9 is released, I'll try updating to it, and if it then fails (as sadly I'm pretty convinced that it will on my machine) perhaps we can do some troubleshooting. Avast support seem to be at a loss about the problem of the services refusing to run on some XP systems, as they say that they can't reproduce it.

It looks like KB4461579 which was offered today (along with KB4227172) is the replacement. Working fine thank goodness!

Unfortunately I don't have the relevant log any more as I'm now using a version that doesn't have the problem. However, I will be trying version 18.9 when it's released (or they put up a public beta version) at which time if it still doesn't work I will have the log with the error recorded again I'm sure! I do have some Windows services disabled, as they have never been needed on my system, but all the ones that are recorded as being needed by Avast are enabled and running fine. This includes Terminal Services and the Background Intelligent Transfer service. If there are any others needed, I would be very interested to know, although the guy I've been dealing with at Avast support has never mentioned checking any others. I have already used the Avast Cleaner tool many times, and done manual file and registry cleaning too, but it has never made any difference. I've always used the offline installer, you seem to have to do that anyway for XP installs, although it actually won't work without an internet connection as the installer still has to download stuff for the install to work. I have to let the installer get past that point and then pull the plug quickly to stop the program immediately updating to the latest version, which then doesn't work! I did submit a report file to Avast in the early days of the troubleshooting, the one here, but they didn't say that it showed anything significant. If you have another diagnostic tool I would be very keen to try it, but not until 18.9 is released if it still doesn't work, as I'm happy using 12.3 until then. I do have all the XP compatible .NET frameworks installed. Good to hear about the POSReady updates, sounds like they're unlikely to be relevant to the problem. Thanks for the help! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks @Tangy! Yes, I've checked everything that's in the Avast troubleshooting documents about the UI not starting (which is because the main Avast AV service is not running), and everything is as it should be. I've done umpteen uninstalls, system cleaning, and clean installs with the later versions, nothing makes any difference. The only clue as to why the service is not running in versions later than 18.3 is in avastsvc.log, where it says on every boot "[error] [serviceapp ] [ 1268: 1272] failed to connect to service controller". Googling that just produces a reference to someone on the Avast forum with exactly the same problem, but no resolution!

Yes, this confused me for a while, especially when I was trying to find old Avast versions to test with! They did indeed go straight from version 12 to version 17, as they introduced a new system where the version number is the year of release. Version 12 was only in 2016, so it's not as old as it sounds relative to 17 and 18 (released in 2017 and 2018 of course). I'm using 12.3 now (not 12.4 as I mistakenly said earlier) and that is the last version that works reasonably well on my XP system, without slowing everything down horribly and/or filling the Windows logs with error messages. I think they introduced a new UI with version 17, and I strongly suspect this may be causing at least some of my present problems. I actually like the 12.3 UI better anyway!

That had of course occurred to me! I think it's very unlikely that those XP users reporting problems on the Avast forums are all running with the POSReady hack, at least no-one seems to have ever mentioned it there, but it might be worth asking! I did try installing Avast without the POSReady hack registry entries, just in case the installer didn't think it was a Windows XP system or something, but that made no difference. You are quite right that one or more of the POSReady updates might be causing the problem though. I'm not about to uninstall them all to try to find out!

Avast still say they have many users running versions up to 18.8 on XP SP3 systems with no problems whatsoever, and the Avast forums would seem to confirm that, with many XP user posters with no problems at all trying to help others for whom Avast is completely unusable on XP, and not getting anywhere! Why some XP users, including me, seem to have a problem is all a bit of a mystery. All their technical support guys seems to be able to say is that there are issues with "some hardware and software combinations" with XP. What no-one seems to have been able to do so far is to determine what the XP machines with the problems have in common!

Thanks den, that was what I was assuming!

I just wish there was a recent version which worked with my XP system. I'm using version 12.3 at the moment, all the 17 and 18 versions have severe problems. Versions after 18.3 the main services won't even run on my machine, which makes it useless of course. I had high hopes for 18.8, which was supposed to have fixed the problems that "some" XP users are having, but it was exactly the same. I'm now waiting for 18.9, which will probably be the very last XP compatible version, but I'm not holding up much hope. I've been in e-mail conversation with someone from Avast technical support for weeks about this, but we're no nearer to any solution. They are well aware that some XP users are having this problem, there are plenty of reports on their forums about it, but apparently so far they have been unable to reproduce it on any of their test systems, so can't troubleshoot it.

Looking at that MS article, it references Winhttp.dll and Updspapi.dll. The former is now the correct version on my system (5.1.2600.7587) but the latter, although there are many old instances of it in previous update folders, does not exist in my \system32 folder. Is that correct? I always thought Updspapi.dll was a file which was just part of the update mechanism, but searches about it seem to often say that there should be a copy of it in \system32.

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Nor am I!

Good news all round! Microsoft Update is no longer warning me that I've hidden an important update, and KB4461522 has vanished from the hidden updates list. Now, should I uninstall KB2863821?

Thanks @FranceBB, sorry I didn't see your post until today because I didn't get a notification of it. Yes, a shame as the discount would have been welcome! I've actually come back to the thread to report that when I updated to 18.8 (on a prompt from Avast support) all the old issues were still there, and the program is still unusable on my XP system. Same main symptom, the main AV and Firewall services just will not start. I'm still with technical support on this, so hopefully we will eventually find a resolution. Until then it looks like I'm back to 18.3!

Thanks @fernman, that's what this forum (and others like it of course) is all about!

There were indeed several Office 2010 updates in this month's Patch Tuesday package, but none replaced MSO.DLL again. I did see there was an update to kernel32.dll for the first time in a while, and I wondered if perhaps they'd added the missing GetDateFormatEx function, but sadly not. I reinstalled KB4461522 and Office immediately completely failed again. Let's hope they do address the problem soon, as surely XP compatibility should be maintained for as long as Office 2010 is itself supported, as it was sold on the basis that it was compatible with XP.

Yes, it finally works! Once again, how long did that take?! Terrible response time, but at least they fixed it before the updates completely ended. I got the Avast warning too, it said it had quarantined the rpcss.dll file, but as said it didn't seem to matter, all updates installed OK.