AVG problems

I was helping a friend sort out their wireless connection yesterday when I noticed that they had no AV software, so as I normally do, I went to install AVG free on the laptop. Things started going wrong at this point:

1) I couldn't open the AVG site on this laptop, though I could on another.

2) After downlaoding from CNET & installing AVG it wouldn't connect to the update servers.

3) The internet connection then dropped, and would only come back with 'limited or no connectivity'

4) Couldn't even connect to the internet using wired connection

I uninstalled AVG and ended up having to use system restore to go back a day or two, and everything worked again, but I tried AVG again (redownloaded too) and the same problems happened. After going through system restore again, I put Avira on and everything worked ok.

The scans picked up a few bits of spyware & malware, but I couldn't see anything particularly nasty. So has anyone got any ideas why AVG was totally blocked by this laptop?

I was helping a friend sort out their wireless connection yesterday when I noticed that they had no AV software, so as I normally do, I went to install AVG free on the laptop. Things started going wrong at this point:

 

1) I couldn't open the AVG site on this laptop, though I could on another.

2) After downlaoding from CNET & installing AVG it wouldn't connect to the update servers.

3) The internet connection then dropped, and would only come back with 'limited or no connectivity'

4) Couldn't even connect to the internet using wired connection

 

I uninstalled AVG and ended up having to use system restore to go back a day or two, and everything worked again, but I tried AVG again (redownloaded too) and the same problems happened. After going through system restore again, I put Avira on and everything worked ok.

 

The scans picked up a few bits of spyware & malware, but I couldn't see anything particularly nasty. So has anyone got any ideas why AVG was totally blocked by this laptop?

There's your problem I'm afraid! Whenever I do a free bit of work for a mate, it always turns into a complete nightmare. I've never heard of AVG causing those problems. All I can imagine is that it was conflicting with another bit of s/w. Was zone alarm or something like that installed? Otherwise perhaps a corrupt installation of AVG in the past was causing some problems. AVG free only gives basic virus protection (enough for most) for as far as I know, thus I don't see why it would block your internet connection.

Avira IMO is equally as good as AVG. The only thing I don't like about it is the stupid splash screen, which can be easily sorted by doing the following: http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&postID=287091

It's also a bit of a pain how it brings up the pop up after updating - this can be disabled by doing the following: http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm

I should have learnt my lesson by now (never get involved with friends & family computers), but the mrs volunteered me for this, so I couldn't even make up a lame excuse!

I couldn't see any other AV/firewall software there (apart from standard Windows stuff). It seemed to be a reasonably fresh copy of XP Pro, the only things I can think may have caused problems were the toolbars in IE7 (Google and theopenworld.com :confused: ). What probably concerned me the most was that it wouldn't even let me get on the AVG website or update servers and wondered if something might have been running that was blocking it?

It's the first time I've used Avira (after seeing recommendations on here) and it seems to be pretty good, might give it a try on my lower spec laptop, see how it goes.

Did it have all the latest netframes installed & SP's?

Did it have all the latest netframes installed & SP's?

It was missing SP3, but is now running smoothly with Avira installed. I double checked for viruses with SAV32CLI and it was all clear, so I can only guess that one of the toolbars installed didn't like AVG :confused: