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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
When I start Windows, I get a popup box
Windows Defender (i) This program is turned off If you are using another program that checks for harmful or unwanted software, use the Action Center to check that program's status. If I open the Action Center, I just see two (orange) sections: one telling me "Windows Update is set to check with you before downloading and installing updates.", which I have no intention of changing!, and one telling me "Your files are not being backed up.", which just means I don't have an _automatic_ backup in place. There is no mention of AVG at all. I'm sure I've seen Action Center acknowledge, and reflect the settings of, AVG before now. (AVG's icon is in the tray, _without_ a yellow triangle on it; if I click on it, it comes up and tells me "You have basic protection", and "Virus definition: 3 hours ago". So how do I remind Action Center that I have a working and up-to-date copy of AVG? (Do I have to do something from within AVG?) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I've never really "got" sport or physical exercise. The only muscle I've ever enjoyed exercising is the one between my ears. - Beryl Hales, Radio Times 24-30 March 2012 |
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
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#3
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
When I start Windows, I get a popup box Windows Defender (i) This program is turned off If you are using another program that checks for harmful or unwanted software, use the Action Center to check that program's status. If I open the Action Center, I just see two (orange) sections: one telling me "Windows Update is set to check with you before downloading and installing updates.", which I have no intention of changing!, and one telling me "Your files are not being backed up.", which just means I don't have an _automatic_ backup in place. There is no mention of AVG at all. I'm sure I've seen Action Center acknowledge, and reflect the settings of, AVG before now. (AVG's icon is in the tray, _without_ a yellow triangle on it; if I click on it, it comes up and tells me "You have basic protection", and "Virus definition: 3 hours ago". So how do I remind Action Center that I have a working and up-to-date copy of AVG? (Do I have to do something from within AVG?) Action Center - Change Action Center settings There you can decide which alerts to enable or disable. My AV program (Avast) takes care of the registry settings to register it as the alternative to Defender; else, I'd have to use the Action Center settings to disable its alerts regarding "Virus protection" (and perhaps "Spyware and related protection", too). Avast acquired AVG in 2016 so there's no point in sticking with AVG anymore. In fact, soon after the acquisition, Avast modified AVG to add their spam signature, by default, if you installed the mail shield. Avast wanted to use their new acquisition to spam via Usenet and e-mail like they do in their own-brand AV program. https://press.avast.com/avast-announ...re-avg-for-13b |
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
In message , VanguardLH
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [] If I open the Action Center, I just see two (orange) sections: one [] There is no mention of AVG at all. I'm sure I've seen Action Center acknowledge, and reflect the settings of, AVG before now. (AVG's icon is in the tray, _without_ a yellow triangle on it; if I click on it, it comes up and tells me "You have basic protection", and "Virus definition: 3 hours ago". So how do I remind Action Center that I have a working and up-to-date copy of AVG? (Do I have to do something from within AVG?) Action Center - Change Action Center settings That just turns off the warnings. I'm sure I've seen Action Center acknowledge the existence of AVG, in fact I think it did on this machine when I took it (the machine) out of mothballs after a little over a year; unfortunately AVG wouldn't upgrade on its own, so I fetched the new version and installed it, and rather than just updating the old version, it installed alongside the old version - which (I think itself as well as Action Center) kept popping up to tell me it was out of date, I wasn't protected, and so on, while the new one did tell me I was fine. I eventually had to "terminate with extreme prejudice" the old one using Revo Uninstaller's forced uninstall, as recounted in a thread a few days ago. Since I did that, Action Centre has shown no sign of knowing AVG was there - which, as I've said, I'm sure I've seen it do in the past, I think even on this machine. There you can decide which alerts to enable or disable. My AV program (Avast) takes care of the registry settings to register it as the alternative to Defender; else, I'd have to use the Action Center That's what I expected AVG to do. Maybe if I uninstall it and install it again, it will, but I CBA - I was just hoping someone would know a way, either inside Action Center or inside AVG, of telling the former of the latter's presence. settings to disable its alerts regarding "Virus protection" (and perhaps "Spyware and related protection", too). Avast acquired AVG in 2016 so there's no point in sticking with AVG So why are the two products continuing to exist? I'd have expected them to gradually turn AVG into Avast. anymore. In fact, soon after the acquisition, Avast modified AVG to add their spam signature, by default, if you installed the mail shield. Though that doesn't mention Avast, I don't think. I've turned off the mail shield anyway - there's no point, with my or I think most other mail clients (I suppose _some_ clients can run scripts; mine certainly can't. Anything saved to disc should trigger an AV product anyway). Avast wanted to use their new acquisition to spam via Usenet and e-mail like they do in their own-brand AV program. Oh, so if I ever switch to Avast, I've got to turn something off there too. Thanks for the warning! https://press.avast.com/avast-announ...re-avg-for-13b -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Security is the perfect excuse to lock you out of your own computer. - Mayayana in alt.windows7.general, 2015-12-4 |
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
In message , "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
writes: In message , VanguardLH writes: [] There you can decide which alerts to enable or disable. My AV program (Avast) takes care of the registry settings to register it as the alternative to Defender; else, I'd have to use the Action Center That's what I expected AVG to do. Maybe if I uninstall it and install it again, it will, but I CBA - I was just hoping someone would know a way, either inside Action Center or inside AVG, of telling the former of the latter's presence. [] Or, failing that "easy" way, anyone know which are the relevant registry settings, and what they should be set to. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway. - Penny Mayes, UMRA, 2014-August |
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
Alternatively, if you don't want any of the alerts from the Action
Center and don't want to separately configure them in its GUI wizard, right-click on the system notification area (aka tray area), Customize, click on "Turn system icons on or off", and disable the Action Center. I don't want any of its alert so I disabled it. If you don't want to get alerted, what is the point of leaving the Action Center running? To me, the Action Center is just security bloatwa it affords no protection in and of itself. I don't need yet another tool telling me the state of various programs. AVs register themselves during installation by using an API call to register with the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...nstrumentation. Sorry but I don't want to delve into how an AV gets registered or what is the API call or what Windows does with that data sent in the API call or how it encodes that registration in the registry. The Action Center receives notifications from WMI. If the AV doesn't register itself with WMI (some don't; as I recall, MalwareBytes doesn't because it is neither anti-virus or anti-spyware but instead considers itself anti-malware) or that registration gets corrupted, you have to re-register the AV with WMI (see my last paragraph on how I'd do it easily). See: https://www.opswat.com/blog/windows-...-wmi-consumers In that article is mentioned "use of a private API that can be obtained by signing an NDA". Well, if the API is private, it might be documented but how to use it (structure of the call) might be something that Microsoft has to tell the AV vendor after that AV vendor agrees to an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). This is probably to thwart malware that could override the WMI settings to either make the AV look dead or cause other problems to the user. I found the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Action Center\Checks That tells the Action Center what to alert on or not to alert on; however, those {GUID}-named subkeys reflect the settings found in the GUI for the Action Center. Those are encoded strings so you don't want to mess with their values. They probably contain the data sent in the WMI call for the "class AntiVirusProduct" construct. The only ones that I found info about we {E8433B72-5842-4d43-8645-BC2C35960837}.check.100 (anti-virus) {E8433B72-5842-4d43-8645-BC2C35960837}.check.102 (anti-spyware) {E8433B72-5842-4d43-8645-BC2C35960837}.check.103 (Windows updates) Those strings are too short to have anything within them to identify the handler for those services. A search through the registry on just E8433B72-5842-4d43-8645-BC2C35960837 didn't turn up anything outside of the Action Center's registry settings key. The other Checks\{GUID} keys might have info about the registered AV program but those strings are encoded (and I wasn't going to spend time finding out how to decode them or how to issue WMI calls to query registration of the AV). In the Action Center, click the down-arrow chevron for the Security section. If a 3rd party anti-virus properly registered itself via WMI or is still properly registered, it will be listed there. Mine shows: Virus protection Avast Antivirus reports that it is up to date and virus scanning is on Spyware and unwanted software protection Avast Antivirus reports that it is turned on Note the "reports" status. Looks like Windows or the Action Center will query the AV to check if it is enabled and updated. If I disable all shields in Avast, this list auto-updates in Action Center's Security center to tell me that Avast is turned off. Could be the Action Center is querying the current state of the Checks\{GUID} keys, or it might itself be issuing WMI calls to check on status. Under the "Spywware and unwanted software protection" listing, there is a link to "View installed antispyware programs". When I look at that, it lists Avast (as on) and Defender (as off since I disabled it - Defender was only an anti-spyware program until Windows 8 where anti-virus was added). The entry in this list, for me using Avast, says "Avast Antivirus" so I searched on that string in the registry. There are the obvious entries where Avast stores its settings and its Uninstall string in the registry but I wasn't hunting for those. Didn't find one. You would have to decode the Checks\{GUID} keys or find out what WMI calls (the same ones use by the Action Center) to query status on the installed components to determine if one of them was an AV. If the AV is registering itself under the Checks\{GUID} key, maybe it will also deregister itself. Have you checked in Avast's config GUI that your license is still valid? You only get 1 year per license after which (or a month before due to a prompt) you must renew the license; else, Avast gets crippled. They don't want you using an old version, even for their free version. It's not just the signatures they want to make sure you have updated but also the heuristics and feature set as part of a program update, plus they probably have their own marketing reasons to require a yearly license update. Go into Avast's setting and check its subscription status. I have 36 days remaining so soon I will get a prompt and will have to renew the license to keep Avast active. The only way for me to renew the license before it expires (and not using their prompt method since I disabled all prompts to get rid of their repetitive spam popups in their free version) is to uninstall Avast, cleanup, and reinstall Avast to get a new license. Avast claims their users no longer have to re-register Avast but you'll see there is still a subscription status that will expire. Perhaps they moved the license renewal into the program update function. On Windows 7 Home Edition x64 SP-1, my Avast instance is at 17.9.2322 (build 17.9.3761.278). I don't use AVG (never did, still don't after Avast's acquisition) so I cannot tell you how to determine its subscription status or if it is even active (presumably it has an option to disable itself for awhile or until the next Windows boot). Have you even tried uninstalling AVG (and then either manually cleaning out the remnant file and registry entries or using their cleanup tool) and reinstalling AVG? Avast has a cleanup tool so I'm assuming so does AVG. Of course, after uninstalling AVG and cleaning up, you could switch to Avast since Avast owns both Avast and AVG. Also, during the reinstall of AVG (or installing Avast), you can eliminate their spam without having to disable that option to append their fake signature onto your e-mails and Usenet posts: Don't install the superfluous mail shield module. It affords no added protection beyond the on-demand scanner. You might want to review what modules you install by doing a customized installation. For Avast, I only install their File Shield, Behavior Shield, Web Shield, Wi-Fi Inspector, and Game Mode. All the other fluff is either superfluous, ineffective (e.g., Security Browser Extension which was called Web Reputation which is nothing more than a similar extension to the WOT, Web Of Trust, extension) or is lureware (you get a trial but have to pay to continue using). From what I've seen of screen snapshots online for AVG, Computer Shield you want but Web & Mail Shield is superfluous and SafePrice is a bloatware extension. Avast claims AVG will continue to survive but I don't that will remain true as Avast will want to focus on their corporate image and marketing and not dilute their market with multiple differently-branded products. I doubt dual-branding will survive. The feature sets will merge and having to invest resources on providing separate GUIs and codebases is a waste of money to supply 2 product brands with similar features and capabilities. https://blog.avast.com/avast-and-avg-a-future-together https://www.the-parallax.com/2016/09...-avg-users-qa/ - The actual technical work of running the products with a common engine is pretty straightforward. That¢s going to roll out in three months. - For engineering, of course, we¢ll be running one consolidated engine, but it¢s going to be a more complex engine, ... It's possible AVG out-survives the Avast brand. Until then consumers remain confused about dual-branding thinking they are different products. Avast also acquired Piriform, so ownership has changed for the CCleaner, Speccy, Defraggler, and Recuva tools that I use. |
#7
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How to tell Windows I'm using AVG?
In message , VanguardLH
writes: Alternatively, if you don't want any of the alerts from the Action Center and don't want to separately configure them in its GUI wizard, right-click on the system notification area (aka tray area), Customize, click on "Turn system icons on or off", and disable the Action Center. That doesn't answer my original question, though see below. I don't want any of its alert so I disabled it. If you don't want to get alerted, what is the point of leaving the Action Center running? To me, the Action Center is just security bloatwa it affords no protection in and of itself. I don't need yet another tool telling me the state of various programs. I don't see it doing any _harm_, though. Remember I'm fairly new to full-time home use of Windows 7: I haven't yet turned off UAC prompts, for example, which a lot of people here have. [] In the Action Center, click the down-arrow chevron for the Security section. If a 3rd party anti-virus properly registered itself via WMI or is still properly registered, it will be listed there. Mine shows: Surprise surprise, AVG _is_ shown the Virus protection Avast Antivirus reports that it is up to date and virus scanning is on AVG Antivirus reports that it is up to date and virus scanning is on. Spyware and unwanted software protection Avast Antivirus reports that it is turned on AVG Antivirus reports that it is turned on. [] Under the "Spywware and unwanted software protection" listing, there is a link to "View installed antispyware programs". When I look at that, it lists Avast (as on) and Defender (as off since I disabled it - Defender was only an anti-spyware program until Windows 8 where anti-virus was added). The entry in this list, for me using Avast, says "Avast Antivirus" so I searched on that string in the registry. There I get the same, except "AVG Antivirus". [] If the AV is registering itself under the Checks\{GUID} key, maybe it will also deregister itself. Have you checked in Avast's config GUI that your license is still valid? You only get 1 year per license after which (or a month before due to a prompt) you must renew the license; else, Avast gets crippled. They don't want you using an old version, even for their free version. It's not just the signatures they want to I know the sort of thing you mean: I've seen that sort of thing. I can't actually find anything in AVG's interface saying how long I have left - but I think I only installed the current version in the last month, so should have plenty left. [] Avast claims their users no longer have to re-register Avast but you'll see there is still a subscription status that will expire. Perhaps they moved the license renewal into the program update function. On Windows That would seem logical. 7 Home Edition x64 SP-1, my Avast instance is at 17.9.2322 (build 17.9.3761.278). I don't use AVG (never did, still don't after Avast's acquisition) so I cannot tell you how to determine its subscription status or if it is even active (presumably it has an option to disable itself for awhile or until the next Windows boot). My AVG says it is 18.1.3044 (I'm sure it was 17.something last time I looked!). Have you even tried uninstalling AVG (and then either manually cleaning out the remnant file and registry entries or using their cleanup tool) and reinstalling AVG? Avast has a cleanup tool so I'm assuming so does AVG. Of course, after uninstalling AVG and cleaning up, you could AVG does have one - I downloaded it, intending to use it after trying with Revo's forced uninstall if that didn't work, but it seemed to. switch to Avast since Avast owns both Avast and AVG. Also, during the reinstall of AVG (or installing Avast), you can eliminate their spam without having to disable that option to append their fake signature onto your e-mails and Usenet posts: Don't install the superfluous mail shield module. It affords no added protection beyond the on-demand Well, I have it turned off. [] Avast claims AVG will continue to survive but I don't that will remain true as Avast will want to focus on their corporate image and marketing and not dilute their market with multiple differently-branded products. On the whole I'd have expected the same, i. e. AVG disappear, though it has been well over a year. [] It's possible AVG out-survives the Avast brand. Until then consumers remain confused about dual-branding thinking they are different products. Avast also acquired Piriform, so ownership has changed for the CCleaner, Speccy, Defraggler, and Recuva tools that I use. I think they might indeed keep AVG and ditch Avast - I think the AVG brand is somewhat better known. FWIW, the ABOUT page for my AVG says Copyright© 1992-2017 AVG Technologies, All rights reserved. making no mention of Avast. So it seems Action Center _does_ know I have AVG - it just doesn't show it in the basic opening screen, which just shows two orange sections (I have to delve into it to find mention of AVG), and still tells me at startup (or _something_ does) that Defender is turned off. I'm not worried - I leave this machine on for days, so only see that rarely. (My old XP machine used to lose its wifi connection - I never did get to the bottom of why - intermittently, but on average about once every day or two. A reboot seemed to be the only thing that re-established it.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf By most scientific estimates sustained, useful fusion is ten years in the future - and will be ten years in the future for the next fifty years or more. - "Hamadryad", ~2016-4-4 |
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