When a W 10 "upgrade" takes two days until you find the culprit....

[lostinisaan]

I've had a real serious problem and almost gave up to upgrade this PC. Got on that far that it downloaded all W 10 files thru updates.

But the installation process ( the circle) never really started and i had no time to watch it the whole time.

Then after a restart awaiting to see the W 10 Logo, it showed a little message that the W 10 upgrade didn't work.Not why not.

i gave it a few more tries, but always the same outcome. Then i tried to delete a cracked Antivirus system from Avira that wasn't updated since 2014?

Unfortunately was the program not visible, no Uninstaller from Windows, or any others did even see the installed program that always popped messages up.

Then the big surprise. I tried to find an uninstall tool from Avira, but had to find out that the company had taken that one out.

I finally started the machine in Safe mode and could move the Avira program files to the desktop and then into the bin.

Then the next try and all in a sudden a successful setup as usual. I felt so stupid that i din't try that before and finally wasted two days of my life.

I really hate all these Anti virus programs where you need a special uninstall tool form the same company.

It does make sense, because they don't want to lose their customers, so many people give up and keep the junk.

If it only helps one here, the post has done its job.

[Cloggie]

Had exactly the same problem with my upgrade from Windows 7 => Windows 10 until I removed Avast Antivirus.

After that the installation / upgrade went like a breeze.....

[gandalf12]

Avira is a major problem. I suffered the same when upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I uninstalled Avira and had no problem with the installation. I have read somewhere that Avira causes the problems as it contains malware. Dont know if it is true but it definitely acted as if it did. Only ever used Avira once and it will be the last time. I will continue with the big names as I have never had a problem with them

I changed to Bit Defender and the installation went very smoothly

[chrisinth]

Without trying to be ethical here, i cannot understand why people use 'cracked' anti-virus software on their machines, especially when it would only cost you $32 for a year's protection.

Many years ago, I used a lot of 'educational' software and the only software that would have been legit would have been the protection software I used at the time. It takes a lot now-a-days for my halo to slip...................

If you are going to dabble on the dark side, at least make sure your protection is up to detecting real threats from dodgy software, internet, thumb drives, etc.......................

Bit like going bare-back on an all night session with a lady of the night, why risk it?

And of course it raises a good point if you are installing software from a known safe source, disable your protection for that duration and enable and run a quick scan on completion. Different flavours of anti-virus software can affect and even disrupt installs with false positives, etc. Some people will rightly argue this thought process, each to their own.

[Cloggie]

We did not write we used cracked software and we didn't as most antivirus software is FREE anyway like Avast, AVG and Avir

[gandalf12]

We did not write we used cracked software and we didn't as most antivirus software is FREE anyway like Avast, AVG and Avir

Agreed it is free but none of these give you really good protection. For anti-Virus you can not equal let alone better the major players such as Symantec, Bit Defender, Kaspersky to mention a few. It is interesting if you have not already done so to read the independent reviews of the software. Read them and you may get a shock

[Speedo1968]

Try Kaspersky, it's not free but I have found it good over many years.

A couple of points

#1 - Don't renew online if you are about to, or have moved to a new location - I had lots of hassle trying to get a refund of a double billing. Buy at any good computer center and update.

#2 - If going over to W10 read Kaspersky advice first. W10 is supported but you are advised to download a new version of Kaspersky before moving to W10.

[lostinisaan]

Without trying to be ethical here, i cannot understand why people use 'cracked' anti-virus software on their machines, especially when it would only cost you $32 for a year's protection.

Many years ago, I used a lot of 'educational' software and the only software that would have been legit would have been the protection software I used at the time. It takes a lot now-a-days for my halo to slip...................

If you are going to dabble on the dark side, at least make sure your protection is up to detecting real threats from dodgy software, internet, thumb drives, etc.......................

Bit like going bare-back on an all night session with a lady of the night, why risk it?

And of course it raises a good point if you are installing software from a known safe source, disable your protection for that duration and enable and run a quick scan on completion. Different flavours of anti-virus software can affect and even disrupt installs with false positives, etc. Some people will rightly argue this thought process, each to their own.

The "cracked version of an Avira product" was put on by a computer shop, last update was done 2014. ( I assume that it was cracked )

You should really ask your particular question to most computer shops in this country and not here. .

Sad is that Avira stopped to offer their own removal tool, of course to keep customers buying their fragged up <deleted>" for unsatisfied buffaloes.

An ordinary user would therefore have to continue with this superb company, or go to a computer shop.

I'm afraid that plenty of companies that offer Anti virus products also create super viruses.

I'm only using Kaspersky and if anybody doesn't want to spend the 500 baht per year, he/she should stop using a computer. .

[Lannig]

Agreed it is free but none of these give you really good protection. For anti-Virus you can not equal let alone better the major players such as Symantec, Bit Defender, Kaspersky to mention a few.

Working in a large institution where Symantec has been made mandatory by the powers-that-be I can't help laughing when reading this. it's a major pain in the ass, a bloated, buggy piece of crap that causes countless software installs or upgrades to fail due to false positives.

On the other hand, I have nothing to say against BitDefender or Kaspersky although I would trust the latter much more.

Anyway, back to the topic: disabling or uninstalling the anti-virus over an upgrade is good practice. Upgrading an o/s means thousands and thousands of executable files written and each one of these will be scanned, which can mean and endless process as observed. As for Avira, well, it used to be an excellent product, much less bloated than Avast or AVG, but as of lately it has caught up or even passed them in terms of resource consumption.

it's only my two satangs but these days AVG seems to me the more painless among the available FREE a/v's.

Well, until they started having this daily advertisement popup for the full version a few days ago at least...

Edited May 17, 2016 by Lannig

[chrisinth]

We did not write we used cracked software and we didn't as most antivirus software is FREE anyway like Avast, AVG and Avir

From the OP:

"Then i tried to delete a cracked Antivirus system from Avira that wasn't updated since 2014?"

Is that some sort of computer speak that i don't understand?

[chrisinth]

Without trying to be ethical here, i cannot understand why people use 'cracked' anti-virus software on their machines, especially when it would only cost you $32 for a year's protection.

Many years ago, I used a lot of 'educational' software and the only software that would have been legit would have been the protection software I used at the time. It takes a lot now-a-days for my halo to slip...................

If you are going to dabble on the dark side, at least make sure your protection is up to detecting real threats from dodgy software, internet, thumb drives, etc.......................

Bit like going bare-back on an all night session with a lady of the night, why risk it?

And of course it raises a good point if you are installing software from a known safe source, disable your protection for that duration and enable and run a quick scan on completion. Different flavours of anti-virus software can affect and even disrupt installs with false positives, etc. Some people will rightly argue this thought process, each to their own.

The "cracked version of an Avira product" was put on by a computer shop, last update was done 2014. ( I assume that it was cracked )

You should really ask your particular question to most computer shops in this country and not here. .

Sad is that Avira stopped to offer their own removal tool, of course to keep customers buying their fragged up <deleted>" for unsatisfied buffaloes.

An ordinary user would therefore have to continue with this superb company, or go to a computer shop.

I'm afraid that plenty of companies that offer Anti virus products also create super viruses.

I'm only using Kaspersky and if anybody doesn't want to spend the 500 baht per year, he/she should stop using a computer. .

Bit confused by this post.

Why did you still have Avira still installed on your system when you only use Kaspersky? You say that by removing Avira you were then able to run the upgrade, which to me would suggest that Avira was also running at the time you first tried to do the upgrade.

Maybe you should have gone to:

https://www.avira.com/en/support-for-home-knowledgebase-detail/kbid/88

to uninstall. If the steps don't work, click on the manual uninstall link for your version of Windows. The Avira registry cleaner is available for download from this page. There should be no reason for a specific uninstall tool from Avira.

As for computer shops; if i am building a computer, the only thing that is done with the hard drive is that i ask them to put a D drive partition on it (just to prove the drive is hooked up correctly). I will either install from scratch or from a bare metal image myself.

But as far as anti-virus programs go, I protect as I see fit. For example, on my home computer I only run Windows Defender & Malwarebytes Pro and that IMO covers anything i might be doing with that computer. It is stand alone and always backed up by incremental image software. On my laptop I run ESET for Business (with Malwarebytes Pro) to raise the bar a bit, and again imaged every week, with important files in the cloud.

Office setup is different again, internet side protected by GFI Essentials and each server, workstation and notebook protected by individual anti-virus packages, mostly against thumb & external drive threats.

Although there are times when i think anti-virus software is over rated, i have never had an infected machine as the protection has done what it is meant to and stopped the virus/trojan/bot/worm before they can cause damage.

IMO, unless targeted, I believe there is a greater threat from malware/ransomware now-a-days, and whatever suite you decide on make sure it includes a good anti-malware module as well.

Edited May 17, 2016 by chrisinth

[Gary A]

I was happily using the free Windows antivirus software. I had a smart phone problem and downloaded a lot of different software ROMs and repair programs. That was all for nothing because it turned out that the mainboard was the problem. Anyways, I got a BUNCH of Chinese junk installed without knowing it. The worst of all that crap was one called tencent. I wasted a lot of time trying to get it out of my computer. I finally found a free malware removal program called Malwarebytes. That found it and removed it. I had to remove the home page hijackers manually. I broke down and bought Bitdefender Total Security. Hopefully that will prevent further problems. I still have a problem with missing tiles on the Windows 10 start menu. Other than that I escaped any more problems. It's disturbing when your computer changes the language to Chinese. Bastards!

[lostinisaan]

Without trying to be ethical here, i cannot understand why people use 'cracked' anti-virus software on their machines, especially when it would only cost you $32 for a year's protection.

Many years ago, I used a lot of 'educational' software and the only software that would have been legit would have been the protection software I used at the time. It takes a lot now-a-days for my halo to slip...................

If you are going to dabble on the dark side, at least make sure your protection is up to detecting real threats from dodgy software, internet, thumb drives, etc.......................

Bit like going bare-back on an all night session with a lady of the night, why risk it?

And of course it raises a good point if you are installing software from a known safe source, disable your protection for that duration and enable and run a quick scan on completion. Different flavours of anti-virus software can affect and even disrupt installs with false positives, etc. Some people will rightly argue this thought process, each to their own.

The "cracked version of an Avira product" was put on by a computer shop, last update was done 2014. ( I assume that it was cracked )

You should really ask your particular question to most computer shops in this country and not here. .

Sad is that Avira stopped to offer their own removal tool, of course to keep customers buying their fragged up <deleted>" for unsatisfied buffaloes.

An ordinary user would therefore have to continue with this superb company, or go to a computer shop.

I'm afraid that plenty of companies that offer Anti virus products also create super viruses.

I'm only using Kaspersky and if anybody doesn't want to spend the 500 baht per year, he/she should stop using a computer. .

Bit confused by this post.

Why did you still have Avira still installed on your system when you only use Kaspersky? You say that by removing Avira you were then able to run the upgrade, which to me would suggest that Avira was also running at the time you first tried to do the upgrade.

Maybe you should have gone to:

https://www.avira.com/en/support-for-home-knowledgebase-detail/kbid/88

to uninstall. If the steps don't work, click on the manual uninstall link for your version of Windows. The Avira registry cleaner is available for download from this page. There should be no reason for a specific uninstall tool from Avira.

As for computer shops; if i am building a computer, the only thing that is done with the hard drive is that i ask them to put a D drive partition on it (just to prove the drive is hooked up correctly). I will either install from scratch or from a bare metal image myself.

But as far as anti-virus programs go, I protect as I see fit. For example, on my home computer I only run Windows Defender & Malwarebytes Pro and that IMO covers anything i might be doing with that computer. It is stand alone and always backed up by incremental image software. On my laptop I run ESET for Business (with Malwarebytes Pro) to raise the bar a bit, and again imaged every week, with important files in the cloud.

Office setup is different again, internet side protected by GFI Essentials and each server, workstation and notebook protected by individual anti-virus packages, mostly against thumb & external drive threats.

Although there are times when i think anti-virus software is over rated, i have never had an infected machine as the protection has done what it is meant to and stopped the virus/trojan/bot/worm before they can cause damage.

IMO, unless targeted, I believe there is a greater threat from malware/ransomware now-a-days, and whatever suite you decide on make sure it includes a good anti-malware module as well.

Sorry for my weird wording. I'm using Kaspersky after trying all sorts of programs the last years on my own machines. ( I was more than exhausted when i wrote that.)

The freaking Avira was on a friend's machine and it seems an Advice shop had made the set up for his W 7. If a program like Avira didn't update since 2 years and still works ( not really) it has to be a cracked version, or? Especially when you don't see anything that it's a free version.

[lostinisaan]

I was happily using the free Windows antivirus software. I had a smart phone problem and downloaded a lot of different software ROMs and repair programs. That was all for nothing because it turned out that the mainboard was the problem. Anyways, I got a BUNCH of Chinese junk installed without knowing it. The worst of all that crap was one called tencent. I wasted a lot of time trying to get it out of my computer. I finally found a free malware removal program called Malwarebytes. That found it and removed it. I had to remove the home page hijackers manually. I broke down and bought Bitdefender Total Security. Hopefully that will prevent further problems. I still have a problem with missing tiles on the Windows 10 start menu. Other than that I escaped any more problems. It's disturbing when your computer changes the language to Chinese. Bastards!

"Baidu" is pretty much liked by Thais. Once your machine has got one program it's very difficult to clean it up.