Avast & Icons

Repa,

Couple of questions. Unsure if they mean anything.

1) The Icons on my desktop highlight by themselves just by hovering the Mouse Cursor over them. Strange or what?

2) Ran a Boottime scan this weekend. I returned about the time I thought it the scan should be finished, and it was complete. The strange thing is that the Avast orange ball Icon was not in the task tray. All that was in the tray was the Volume Icon. And nothing would work that I tried clicking on. It was kinda like it froze up. I had to hold the Power Button in until it shut the computer off.

Just wanted your thoughts?

Repa,

When you open up Avast Interface, about middle of the window it shows the email connected to your Avast account.
I could not find the answer to this, so, could you tell me how to change my email connected to my Avast account over to the Yahoo email I'm now using?

What you are referring to has nothing to do with email. Avast Antivirus 7 allows users to monitor multiple installations of the program with an online Avast account. You have to register with Avast to have this account, and you can use that Connect button to sign in to the account. It isn't something you need to have.

When you view your email through a browser then the Mail Shield doesn't monitor/scan that traffic, the Web Shield does - as long as you don't use an https:// connection to view your Yahoo email. The Yahoo server uses Norton to scan your emails in your Yahoo account, providing you with another level of email protection. You have nothing to worry about - your Yahoo mail is being protected at the Yahoo email server by Norton and by the Avast Web Shield on your computer. Still, remember to never open email from anyone you don't know, or click on links or open attachments that come from anyone that you aren't sure if they know what they are doing.

The email shield is used for scanning mail that would come into your system via an email client such as Outlook, Outlook Express, etc., or Windows Live Mail, which is included in Windows Live Essentials. It scans this mail before it is put in your inbox. Since you don't use an email client, you don't need to worry about this.

Okay, thanks, Repa. I misunderstood about the Avast & email. I thought it had something to do with them contacting me regarding my Avast account, or something. Glad to know I won't have to change anything.

Quote from 9 Apr - 18:56: Ran a Boottime scan this weekend. I returned about the time I thought it the scan should be finished, and it was complete. The strange thing is that the Avast orange ball Icon was not in the task tray. All that was in the tray was the Volume Icon. And nothing would work that I tried clicking on. It was kinda like it froze up. I had to hold the Power Button in until it shut the computer off.

Repa the same thing happened as described in my first post about this. I monitored the boottime scan closer this time, and no threat was found, but, I'm a little concerned about why this is happening now, and it has never happened in the past. Is this something to be disturbed about?

Something in Avast may be corrupt. Go to your Add/Remove programs and click on the Change/Remove button for Avast. A window will appear. Select the Repair icon in the left column and then click the next button and follow any prompts you get. After the repair is completed, try running a bootscan again. If you still have a problem when you get to your desktop after a bootscan (be sure you wait several minutes before suspecting a problem), than as long as the bootscan completed successfully and you can reboot or shutdown and reboot and get the Avast Icon in the system tray like normal, then you should be ok.

2nd option would be to uninstall and reinstall Avast if you aren't happy with the results above.

Repa,

I ran the Repair, then the Boottime scan. I don't know how long the Boottime scan had been finished when I came to check the progress. But, the system tray had the Volume, and Avast Icons in it, but, the printer Icon was not there this time. I opened Avast and I was gonna see the Boottime scan results, but, when I clicked the "Scan" to look at the logs, it would not open for me. So, I closed Avast. Next I tried the Start Menu, and that's when things froze up. I finally held the power button to shut it down.

Do you think maybe I didn't wait long enough before clicking on anything?

no, the wait after reboot to the desktop shouldn't take over a minute. You might want to take a look at the task manager and see what is running. If you keep having trouble, think about uninstalling and re-installing. I haven't done a bootscan in a while, so I'll check it tomorrow to see if there is a problem with the latest version of avast.

Okay.

I'm not having your problem with an Avast bootscan. Your computer is old and maybe you're beginning to have problems with the hard dirve. You'd best get an external hard drive and start backing up data you want to keep, including favorites and things like that. Look at the western digital or Seagate One Touch Goflex. You can get a 500gb - 1tb seagate external drive for around $99 on sale at Staples, and no more than $150. The one-touch goflex by seagate is very easy to use to backup your data files.

In the meantime, I suggest you periodically check your hard drive for errors - here's how:

1. click My Computer > right-click C:\ drive > Tools tab on the menu that appears.
2. click the "Check now" button under error checking.
3. on the small menu that appears, check both boxes under Check Disk Options and click the Start button.
4. You will get a message that tells you the application cannot be started due to applications running and you will have to restart your computer.
5. restart your computer; the check disk application will run during reboot before windows boots up. You can see it running. It will take some time, so be patient. When it is done, Windows will boot up into Normal Mode.

Running this will fix any errors in your boot sectors and will try to repair any corrupted files it finds. Hopefully, you can keep your computer running a bit longer by doing this about once every 4 - 6 weeks or so.

Repa,
I'll give your post a try.

Now, today after I ran a manual quick avast scan, because I missed the scheduled daily scan, no threat was found. Later this afternoon I returned to the computer to check email. When I looked at the Desktop I noticed an Avast Icon that is not usually on my Desktop.

Is that something to be concerned about?

That will happen when you do a restore - why, I don't know. Other than that, I don't know why it might be there, but I wouldn't concern myself just now.

Repa,

1) Computer has been doing pretty well recently, til today that is., make that yesterday. My wife was on the computer and she called me to look at a window that popped up. It was the "System lacks resources to perform the command" or to that effect. I hurriedly click to turn the computer of, and just barely made it before I would have had to hold the power button in to turn it off. It has been a long time since I've received that notice. Turned computer back on today, and all seemed well. I should tell you that I'm doing all you've told me to do as far as maintenance, and also the Hard drive for errors. I do it once a month instead of the 6 weeks time frame.

2) Thinking I am prolonging the life of this Dinosaur, I plan to turn the computer of when it is not being used. In the past, the lack of Resources to perform functions notice, seems to pop up more often than not when computer sits idle for several hours. Don't you think this may help?

3) Keep an eye open for another post I plan to make after this one. Just a heads up. I don't think it should go here.

Try what it says to do here:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6022890_repair-system-idle-process.html

If that doesn't work, you might want to take a look at the below and try it to see if it helps when this happens:

http://maketecheasier.com/kill-non-responsive-programs-in-windows/2010/06/07

Repa,

I hope I can get those done tomorrow. Thanks.

Please take a look at my other 2 posts, the one called AT&T, and the Ron Paul thread.

Repa,
I left out a question in my post tonight. Earlier when I hovered my mouse over the Avast icon and is still says it as of now, "Attention" Your system is not fully protected". When I first saw this after I turned computer on I opened up avast, and it shows all shields on, Program and engine and virus definitions are all up to date. But, it still say that system is not fully protected.

Hope you know why?

Ok, this is the 4th. post I wanted you to view.

wcturner wrote:

Repa,
I left out a question in my post tonight. Earlier when I hovered my mouse over the Avast icon and is still says it as of now, "Attention" Your system is not fully protected". When I first saw this after I turned computer on I opened up avast, and it shows all shields on, Program and engine and virus definitions are all up to date. But, it still say that system is not fully protected.

Hope you know why?

Ok, this is the 4th. post I wanted you to view.

Your computer is not secure if you are getting that message. Open avast and you should see that same message at the top of the screen. If you do, there should be a "Repair" button that you can click and see if that fixes the problem. There may also be a "Start" or "Restart" button under that that you may also have to click. If you don't see that or you do and it doesn't fix things, you will need to uninstall Avast and re-install it asap. Don't delay on doing this.

Just reading your reply. Today hovering mouse over avast icon says your system is secured. Avast opened shows System Secured at top of page, and all signals show green.

As mentioned last night all shields were on but the hovering mouse over the avast orange ball icon said not fully protected. You have any idea why it said that? Or just one of those things?

wcturner wrote:

Just reading your reply. Today hovering mouse over avast icon says your system is secured. Avast opened shows System Secured at top of page, and all signals show green.

As mentioned last night all shields were on but the hovering mouse over the avast orange ball icon said not fully protected. You have any idea why it said that? Or just one of those things?

Not having seen it, I couldn't tell you - sorry. Best keep an eye on it and make sure it is working right before going on the internet.

Best keep an eye on it and make sure it is working right before going on the internet.

Don't worry, I will.

Repa,

1) On the first link in your post(ehow.com), after following those instructions and click the "End Process" button do I just leave the task manager stuff like that, or do I have to go back and change anything?

2) I went thru the instructions, except for clicking the End Process button, since I didn't know what to expect, and I wanted to ask you the above question first, as you how things turn out for me!

3) This is #6 of the instructions as follows: Click on the "CPU" bar to list processes from highest CPU user to lowest. This will show System Idle Process at the top.
Mine showed just the opposite, System Idle Process at the bottom and it looked to me that the CPU's were just scattered randomly in the list. I probably don't understand how to read the list.?

Repa,

I may be wrong, but, your reply sounds to me as if it does not really matter if the processes are listed from highest cpu usage to lowest CPU usage, or somewhere in between. Right or wrong?

As soon as I see your reply, I'll complete the total instructions.
Thanks.

wc,

I don't often answer questions you asked Repa, but this one I can handle.

You are right.
It does not matter wheter they are listed high to low or low to high. And you can acually put the list in order by the other columns by clicking on the title of the column - for instance you could click on MEMRY - to put them in order by how much memory is being used - and change that from low to high. The order does not matter, that is just to make it easier to find things.

Fay