AlanHo Posted March 13, 2008 Report Share Posted March 13, 2008 They say things run in threes - and sometimes they do.For the third time in 4 days another friend asked me to have a look at his desktop computer which was running very slowly - sometimes freezing - and generally behaving strangely.He was right - Windows XP professional - and it was awful. I could see that he had AVG Free anti virus installed and I asked him when he last did a scan - it transpired he had never done one - the colleague who installed it told him it was fit and forget. I checked the settings and it was configured to do automatic downloads and manual scans.I noticed that the AVG icon in the system tray was monochrome rather than the normal coloured check pattern, when I clicked on it to open the control centre I got a message to tell me the data base was out of date. He told me that it did a download automatically every day so I wondered why the data base would be out of date. The window at the bottom of the control centre stated quite clearly that the data base was released on 13th March (today).The AVG control centre showed a red flag against the virus engine with a message the internal data base is out of date.I did a manual update - only to be told he had the latest data base installed. Despite this - the red flag remained - even after a reboot.Just in case the AVG engine was corrupt I decided to do a complete uninstall, Crap Clean and a reinstall. When the installer started I got a message which said that this was an out of date version and to visit the website for the latest version - which I then downloaded. When I ran the new exe file I got the same message - that this was an old version.Now quite baffled I decided to run Trend Micro - which found a total of 113 viruses and other malware which I managed to eliminate. I then tried to reinstall AVG again but met the same problem - it thinks a brand new file is out of date.After a couple of hours trying all sorts of things I managed to solve the problem with AVG - would anyone care to guess how?...........There will be a free pint in the virtual pub for the first correct answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted March 13, 2008 Report Share Posted March 13, 2008 Repair install ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted March 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Repair install ?Nope - much easier than that................ I have decided to increase the prize - I will now add a choice of a goldfish in a polythene bag or a free copy of Watch Tower. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Re-set the PC date? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Activated it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 I know. They said install Nod 32 instead. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted March 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Re-set the PC date?Clever clogs - it took me more than 2 hours trying all sorts of things before I found that his computer date was set to 13th March 2033.It's not the end of his troubles though - his XP pro is a pirate copy and has never been updated - no SP1 or SP2 or any of the myriad of other security patches. He has no back-up facility and thousands of family photos and all his domestic and financial files on his C: drive which are vulnerable to loss. He has a 13 year old grand-daughter with her own account on the computer - heavens knows what kind of havoc she is wreaking.I have told him how to get himself organised - I can do no more. He is quite affluent and can easily afford a new computer with legitimate software and a back-up hard drive - we will see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Re-set the PC date?Clever clogs - it took me more than 2 hours trying all sorts of things before I found that his computer date was set to 13th March 2033.It's not the end of his troubles though - his XP pro is a pirate copy and has never been updated - no SP1 or SP2 or any of the myriad of other security patches. He has no back-up facility and thousands of family photos and all his domestic and financial files on his C: drive which are vulnerable to loss. He has a 13 year old grand-daughter with her own account on the computer - heavens knows what kind of havoc she is wreaking.I have told him how to get himself organised - I can do no more. He is quite affluent and can easily afford a new computer with legitimate software and a back-up hard drive - we will see.Silly Billy. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 >Alanho, not clever clogs, just that I've been there several times until I changed my m/b. I kept finding that the date was always getting re-set to some ridiculous year but not always the date itself. I couldn't believe the AVG claim that I was out of date. When one or 2 other things started playing up I gave in and changed the m/b. I had posted a couple of questions on here re the battery life to keep the date correct, but that's all now in the local recycling tip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dencandy Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Good bit of detective work AlanHo, but it doesn't seen fair to head the thread 'AVG Troubles' when the trouble was mainly of the owner's own making. Presumably this problem must have been occuring with any other auto updates he had & probably made his system restore unworkable. I've been using the free edition of AVG for 6 months now and have never had ant problems with it. But I don't use auto updates for anything, for reasons explained several times before. By the way doug, what does m/b stand for (it's not in my Microsoft dictionary)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Mother board And I agree with Dencandy on this as I have been using it for around 10 years and only oncs in that time have I had a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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