[Solved!] AVG 7.5 annoying pop-up

[dencorso]

I don't actually think it's related. Do reboot again. I bet everthing will get back to normal.

[MrTaco]

No such luck. This time it took even longer, maybe some 20 minutes or so :/

Maybe I should just disable/skip the boot scanner?

[dencorso]

Rollback the update, using the saved set in C:\WINDOWS\All Users\Application Data\Grisoft\Avg7Data\upd7bin\, to see whether it truly is related to the latest update. I'll test the one available right now and report shortly.

[MrTaco]

I replaced the incavi.avm and upd_vers.cfg in the main folder with the one from the backup folder. It did seem to hang a little bit this time, though I can't remember if it used to do that or not. Either way, it worked, I guess. No multi-minute wait this time. Odds are it'll just end up being something weird with my computer, it seems to like developing odd little quirks of its own.

[dencorso]

Well, I've just tested the latest available set (270.14.149/2631) and they work OK for me. Then again, I've got a relatively fast machine, with lots of RAM, at least from 9x/ME POV (my present machine is tagged "dencorso (II)" and described in my "Day-to-day running..." thread linked below, to the left side of my signature file, in case you want to take a look), so maybe the AVG updates are using too much memory or taking too much CPU time to be processed, in your machine, for the only sure thing about them is that they grow in size at every update, and you did a rather abrupt update of more than 6 months ... Now, if things are solved, I'm glad. If not, I'd say you should:

1) Save away safely a copy of avgabout.dll v. 7.5.0.556.

2) Download AVG Free Edition 7.5 524 from OldApps (link), unless you have a saved copy of that version or of a later 7.5.xxx one.

3) Remove completely AVG from your machine.

4) Reinstall and update from the site up to the 560 naggy version (if you do that it'll stop offering to update and simply say "there are no new updates available" on trying to get them from the internet.

5) Change the default update path to update from a folder and disable automatic updates.

6) Substitute avgabout.dll v. 7.5.560 by a copy of your saved v 7.5.0.556.

And there you are, back to the point from where your problems started, but free of them.

Sorry the updates didn't go well with your machine!

Cheers!

[MrTaco]

Hmm... a little hesitant at removing it completely. On one of my laptops (win2k on a little old PII), I just went with the upgrade and got 8, but it slowed things down so much I decided to get rid of it and go back to 7.5. The thing wouldn't let me install it again though, so I'm kind of worried about it happening again here.

[MrTaco]

Not sure how badly double posts are frowned upon, or if it'll auto-merge like some places, but I took the plunge with the resinstall (after testing on my laptop first ).

It's all up to date and everything, but it's still just lagging to all hell on startup. Only way to fix it is to catch it during that short moment when I can still press Esc to cancel it.

Edited January 19, 2010 by MrTaco

[dencorso]

Well. For sure I'd backup first. If you have separate system and data partitions, an image of the system partition should be enough. If not, go for a full, blind, sector-by-sector image of the full disk. Better safe than sorry. You can read most of what I, and others, have to say about disk imaging here. It's a worthy reading, do give it the time it deserves. Bear in mind that while we talk a lot about ghost there, that is a commercial program some of us have, so it was at the center of the conversation, but you don't need it at all. The freeware Partition Saving will serve you just as well.

[MrTaco]

Wait, what am I doing an image for? I think I missed something.

[dencorso]

Yes. BackUp. The blind, sector-by-sector image is a bullet-proof b-a-c-k-u-p.

After you create the image, you can remove and reinstall AVG7.5... If all goes well, there's no need for the image.

If things get fubar, then you'll simply redeploy the image and get back to the state the machine had before you removed AVG, and can try again.

[MrTaco]

Oh, gotcha. Well, it's kind of too late for that since I already went through with the uninstall/reinstall. And I don't really have anywhere to put an image of my hard drive anyway. But I've just disabled the boot scanner, it's never found anything in the whole time I've been using this computer, so I think I should be fine without it Although now for some reason the thing keeps trying to do a full scan each time I switch my computer on, even though it's only supposed to do it at 8 in the morning and the box for "start immediately if missed" is unchecked. Eh, will keep fiddling with it I guess. Thanks for your help though, dencorso.

[the xt guy]

I'm still updating AVG 7.5 this way on a regular basis and it is still working! Just updated this morning with def. numbered 3268. (I update once a week.)

I've noticed the names of the two defs files used to start with "U7...". Then in 2009 the main defs file (huge size-over 60mb) started being named with "U9...". Starting in October 2010 it changed again to "U10..." but it still seems to work.

Also, there used to be two def files to update, but the second one (small file-only 6.6 megs) was not updated past January 2010, although it was still there to download. In October 2010, AVG changed the whole layout of the download page. This second defs file (the one not updated past Jan. of 2010) is now gone. The big main defs file (66 megs) is still there.

[dencorso]

Same here. But like Mr. Taco, I've disabled BOOTUP.EXE in autoexec.bat. My machine being faster than his, it took longer for me to notice it, but from some point on, the boot scan began taking ages to finish, so I disabled it. It still works, if I reenable it, but takes too long for me to let it run on every boot. But the AVG on my XP boot can take care of that for me. I'm also preferring to do the full system scans from XP. But it's good to have Resident Shield working on 98!

[the xt guy]

I've never used the scan at bootup (nor any kind of automatic daily scan or auto update). I also disabled the e-mail scanner, since it seemed to be holding a port open (1026?) all the time.

I'm very careful about open ports. Since I am on a single machine I don't need any networking services, so my first order on an install is to make sure there are no open ports, a bigger task in NT series OS, as they can have 10 or more ports open by default. Even though I'm on a router/hardware firewall I still don't like having any ports open that don't need to be.

The 9X series is much easier to deal with in this regard, just disable NETBIOS and that closes ports 137/8/9, usually the only ports open in a default install.

Dencorso, I guess were the only two left still using 7.5!

[dencorso]

Dencorso, I guess were the only two left still using 7.5!

Sure! I, for one, don't give up easy. Nor do you, AFAIK!

BTW, just to keep related things as together as possible, here's a very relevant quote from another thread:

AVG 7.5

Since two weeks the update (offline) of the AVG Virus Definitions is faulty. The definitions file incavi.avm remains in the install.1 folder (C:\WINDOWS\All Users\Application Data\Grisoft\Avg7Data\avg7upd\install.1). I must copy it in the AVG program folder. Restart required