I've been using the free version of Avast for about ten years. A few months ago it gave its annual warning that I needed to re-register it. But that didn't work, it just hung.

Tried to register at their website, that also went nowhere.

So now it's completely non-functional, but still sucking up resources, particularly on booting it takes 50% of the CPU for several minutes.

I turned off all shields (which weren't working anyway) and the self protection.

There is no obvious way to uninstall it in the program.

The Control Panel "Add or remove programs" doesn't do anything.

Avast has a program "avastclear.exe" to remove Avast which will not run on WinXP.

Is there an older version of that anywhere that does work on XP?

Or any other way to excise this program without reinstalling Windows?

I did search the forum, but there are 600+ posts mentioning Avast. I skimmed a few dozen without finding anything relevant. But if there are any, please point me to posts that are if you can.

 

And are there any AVs that still work on XP now? The only one I now have is PCTools Threatfire, which being "behaviour based threat scanning" doesn't need signatures. In any case, no viruses the last 10 years I've been running XP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 20242 yr by Asp

3 hours ago, Asp said:

AVs that still work on XP now

Of course! ClamWin.

https://clamwin.com/

3 hours ago, Asp said:

Avast has a program "avastclear.exe" to remove Avast which will not run on WinXP.

Is there an older version of that anywhere that does work on XP?

Or any other way to excise this program without reinstalling Windows?

Tough question, Avast is extremely hard to remove, probably @AstroSkipper has articles, I'm sure he does, look at his profile.

3 hours ago, Asp said:

I did search the forum, but there are 600+ posts mentioning Avast. I skimmed a few dozen without finding anything relevant. But if there are any, please point me to posts that are if you can.

Here's the current list kindly provided and marvellously maintained by @AstroSkipper .

https://msfn.org/board/topic/177099-which-antiviruses-are-known-for-a-fact-to-be-working-on-xp-sp3-as-of-2019/page/27/

And here's the new continuation of all XP supported security programmes by @AstroSkipper, only the best are wisely chosen by the Guru!

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/

5 hours ago, Dixel said:

And here's the new continuation of all XP supported security programmes by @AstroSkipper, only the best are wisely chosen by the Guru!

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/

Great. I found specific instructions to remove Avast there:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/?do=findComment&comment=1244949

 

He has a link to an old version of AvastClear that works on XP. One problem though: it hangs trying to delete a firewall file, which does not exist. I found that rebooting into "Safe mode with networking" let it complete; just "Safe mode" doesn't work.

.So now Avast free and will try ClamWin. Thanks.

Newest version:

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/5376-avast-antivirus-uninstaller.html

15 hours ago, Dixel said:

And here's the new continuation of all XP supported security programmes by @AstroSkipper, only the best are wisely chosen by the Guru!

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/

Thanks for the flowers!  However, the list is still not complete. There are further security and antimalware programmes targeting Windows XP that still need to be written about. The lack of time alone is the limiting factor, though. 

6 hours ago, billmcct said:

Newest version:

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/5376-avast-antivirus-uninstaller.html

The last XP-compatible version 18.8.4084.0 of Avast Clear was from end of 2018. All later versions are no longer compatible with Windows XP as, for example, the version you have linked to.

As mentioned before. Avast can be really difficult to remove. And it can sometimes even leave a system crippled after removal. I prefer to just reinstall Windows at that point.

1 hour ago, tekkaman said:

As mentioned before. Avast can be really difficult to remove. And it can sometimes even leave a system crippled after removal. I prefer to just reinstall Windows at that point.

In general, absolutely unnecessary.  If Avast can't be removed from Windows inside, no matter whether in normal or safe mode, you can do this from outside. I did that in the past to remove locked registry entries which couldn't be deleted from Windows inside, not even by using Avast Clear in safe mode.

Well I had a problem years ago where I tried using aswclear. It did remove it. However after I remove it many programs failed to start because of missing files or dlls. I don't know how that happened.

Another thing about Avast is that it doesn't have any cleaning function at all for the infected files it finds. Unless you had the vrdb ready then you were screwed. One time I was servicing a computer and I let it scan at boot. And I it deleted Internet Explorer completely because it couldn't clean it.