BleepingComputer.com: Uninstall Old Protectoin?

I got PC-cillin Antivirus 11, should I uninstall my old avast software? My old avast software is free and I am guesing is like a free version.

If you want to keep your old avast, you can. You can run it manually for secondary scans. It could pick up something your other one didn't. But you should not have 2 antivirus programs running at the same time. In other words, one of them should not be permitted to run at startup; and then disable your primary antivirus if/when you want to do a second scan manually.

if i may ask, why? While posting this topic, afterwords i went to a lyrics site and a virus protection message from the free avast program poped up and nothing that i know of happened with my new $40.00 PC-cilin Antivirus 11. so should i not keep both open?

Having two anti-virus programs actually make you more vulnerable as they can frequently conflict trying to access the same files at the same time. While the two programs are fighting each other, something else can slip right past the protections. The two programs will identify the other's quarantined files as infections and constantly swap quarantine files. It may lead to system tie-ups and strange behaviour. Even with one AV unactive and used as an on-demand scanner, the active one may interfere with the inactive one identifying its definition files as viruses.

This is one reason why there are on-line AV scanners. These are there for the occasional 2nd opinion. When using these, you temporarily suspend your active AV protection, and reactivate when the on-line scanning is done.

Orange Blossom

Ok I understand now, but one thing I dont understand is how come the free virus protection program caught a virus but my expensive protection did not?
also avast is not located in msconfig on startup, how do I block it from starting up?

This post has been edited by tiverty: 03 January 2007 - 01:06 PM

Short, non-tech answer: Each program is built differently and can look for different things in different ways. I don't think there is one single program that will find absolutely everything.

Look in your settings for avast and see if there is a way to stop it from running there. It might also be listed in Windows Services.

This post has been edited by mommabear: 04 January 2007 - 08:25 AM

I can find no way to not let it start up durring start up of my computer...

Info on shutting down Avast:
http://www.netfaqs.com/windows/AntiVirus/a...email/index.asp

Hmm. Interesting. What is described there doesn't match what happens on my system.

So, here's another possible plan of action.

Right click on the system tray icon

Click on On Access Protection Control.

For each active shield - there are a possible total of 7 - click on the terminate button. Okay your way through any confirmation boxes you get.

Right click on the icon again, and this time click on Program Settings. If the Common window isn't showing, click on common at the top left. Remove, by clicking on it, the green check by Test memory during application start-up.

I am not certain if these steps will keep the program from loading up at windows start-up, but this will at least stop the real-time protection.

Your best bet, though, is to uninstall one of the two Anti-Virus programs.

Orange Blossom

The directions in the link above is for Avast 4.6. The latest is Avast 4.7something.

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To disable avast! Antivirus, click the Terminate button.

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If you see this window select "Yes" to prevent starting at startup of your computer.
The avast!: Persist the changes? window appears.

This window asks if you'd like to save the changes even after Windows is restarted.

Unless you do not want avast! running again, click the No button. This way if you forget to re-enable avast! manually, avast! will re-enable itself when you restart Windows.

thank you buddy215, with your help i got it so it does not start up.