re-installing AVG anti virus

Sweet baby Jesus.

You're supposed to tell us the name of the virus.

We need bread crumbs to help you. Verbatim reporting of symptoms (any text) is important.

So we can Google and see if this is a news item today.

Paul

Not mentioned. The issue follows a *roll back* mistakenly performed to solve something else.

Have you tried the AVG removal tool?

Dave

Ditch AVG completely, it's a resource hog. Use the built in Windows Defender (presumably available in Windows 8

Er..?

Programs and features offers an uninstall option.

Ok. Currently defender is turned off.

System Restore points can be rolled forward, as well as backward.

The exception is when you do restorations in Safe Mode, where no recovery is possible. In Safe Mode, the subsystem to handle Restore Points fully, is not loaded, so the functions are a bit different.

But the ones done from the ordinary running OS, you can undo an SR restore. You use the menu again. You pick the current time point (the "now" one essentially).

Yes, the mechanism can be damaged. SRs don't always work, and the further back in time you go, the more danger of them not completing (they are essentially incrementals, one SR depends on the integrity of another).

In the event of malware, SRs are deleted by your AV. They are considered to be infected, all of them, if a malware is present. An antivirus program invalidates SRs to prevent you from using them. The malware writers know about SR, and how they could make a home for themselves, by occupying each and every SR. Visiting the restoration menu, maybe no dates are available or something.

The details changed, between WinXP and Vista. The file filter is different. Bert Kinney was the expert at the time.

While we "set restore points" before installing a program, in the hope of being able to "roll back" if the installation fails horribly, it's not at all clear today, exactly when we should be doing this, or what exactly the side effects will be. For example, some people roll back three months using SR, and that's... "adventurous". That could make an awful mess.

Even the OS policy now, seems variable. Sometimes you find SR is enabled for you, other times, it seems to be turned off. That would be for W10 or W11 maybe. The mechanism might still work like the Vista description Bert wrote, if it were to be used.

Using backup and restore software is no different. The potential advantage for the user, is having a better idea what would be affected by going back in time (*everything* is affected). Keeping a copy of the C:\users\username folder at a time like that, can be handy. But there might be other parts of the disk drive you're using and you could lose something by going backwards. For example, I keep C:\mingw and that has some program source in it. Maybe I wrote that yesterday, and my restore is for a week ago. My source would be lost. I could keep this on my USB key, before doing a Macrium Restore.

C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\home\username\helloworld.c

There are hours of fun involved in developing good handling practices. For some people, it's discovering they should really have a backup or two. Modern rotating hard drives, degrade rather slowly, but that does not mean you can afford to turn your back on them. Some people hear that "click... click... click..." and they ignore it. When I got a new drive, and I was hearing that on the very first day... I was like, freaking out :-) Too funny. It wasn't a problem, just the +12V was a bit too low for the drive. The drive is fine.

AV programs generally have a "cleaner". The web page where you are picking that up, can have instructions on when and how to use it. Perhaps the instructions say to uninstall the AV first, then run the "cleaner" second. Then reboot. Now you can install the AV again. And the instructions will also chide you to "not lose the license key", so there may be instructions warning you to keep that on a slip of paper or something.

When the license runs out on an AV, the AV continues to run. It may not get signatures, but it can use the signatures it has got, plus heuristics still work. When you uninstall an AV, some of the rootkit-like files may still be present, and the cleaner could be the agent to help with those. We don't really know whether the cleaner is doing anything :-)

Paul

Ok. Paul.

I think the simple way forward is to delete AVG and try Windows defender.

I can expect to get a flock of nudges from AVG offering freebies to re-install.

I have CCleaner which still runs ok.

Thanks

Yes, AVG will have turned it off because you can't (shouldn't) have 2 resident anti virus programmes running at the same time. By resident I mean on all the time working in the background. You can have as many 'on demand' virus scanners as you like - just done initiate a scan at the same time as the resident programme scans.

I'm hoping that's a slip of the tongue. Installed programmes should be uninstalled not deleted. With anti virus programmes it is often better to use the company's own installer rather than the Windows one.

Yep. I'm still on version 4.04 on Windows 8

The standard install does not always remove everything - especially if multiple versions have been installed over the years. So sometimes you might get a problem reinstalling when it clashes with bits of a previous version.

However if going that route, I would download it from the official source:

Generally the "windows one" *is* the programs own uninstaller. Generally when a package is installed using a recognised "installer", it will also setup the required uninstall procedure that will be triggered later should you tell windows to uninstall it.

Hmm. I can go back and try that. I also have AVG web tune up which fails to uninstall when instructed:-)

Window defender will not run and refers me to the administrator with an error code 0x800704ec

Indeed!

Too late unless this can still be done.

Second aged error upthread, this is W7pro not 8:-(

My machine is a re-furbished college unit. Could the original users have organised a local *turn off* which I have inherited?

Some applications are not well behaved, and their uninstall process does a poor job of tidying up after themselves. AVG has been said to fall into that category.

Whoopeedo!

Windows defender is now running!

As suggested the AVG site offers a tool to do a proper strip out. My first experience of W7 safe mode! I lead a very sheltered life:-)

Apparently it plans to do an auto check at 2.00am! The PC is set to use

Thanks to all for advice and support.

Anti-Virus programs seem especially prone to this behaviour, I suppose to prevent malware un-installing them