Buffer overrun when installing Avast Home

Hi,
Thought as Antivir is no longer an option long term I'd give Avast a go - AVG free doesn't have realltime protection and insists on doing a full scan daily (as far as I know) When I try to install I get this message (after a crash warning for crash guard in Fix it utilities which runs in the background)

Buffer overrun detected
Program C\ windows\temp\ av-sfx.tm~A28063\Avast.setup

buffer overrun which has corrupted the programs internal state and must be shut down etc...


I have run BD8 and Kav 6 on line and several malware scans and nothing has been detected. I also downloaded the Avast installer twice incase it was corrupted or incomplete.

I do have the engines for on line av scanners on my laptop could this be the problem? Any suggestions - I am running win98se.

It's a couple of hours since I posted above question:-

See my post https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1012896#post1012896 for surprise and alarming Alexa infection only detected by Lavasoft.

I might have been infected by Superantispyware, but I suspect it was a download of AvastHome. One of my setup downloads is 15,055,168 (I think that was from Snapfiles - a site I now regard as a bit questionable). Meanwhile Majorgeeks download is 14.1 - I suspect the 15 is a hacked/infected one It would explain the sudden appearance of Alexa, & I'm not even going to open it.....now deleted. By the way, incase you think me reckless, McAffee Advisor on Firefox flagged Snapfiles site as green ie safe so I am still a bit confused as to how I became infected.

Anyone had problems downloading via Firefox 2.0? It seems I had to try 3 times before the dowload was okay. Maybe my bad luck or I'm not used to the download interface yet....

Thanks for info in AVG Free - will take another look at it.

Thanks all.....

 

clean your temp files, using disk cleanup or a tool like that.

then re-download the program.

 

Re: AVG

AVG free does have resident protection. At least thats what it says, & thats what I'm using now.

 

AVG free does offer real-time protection, and you can change the daily scan option during installation, or go to the scheduler and modify it.

Install and run CCleaner.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4191

If you still want to use Avast! try downloading the setup from MajorGeeks.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Avast_Home_Edition_d1968.html

 

avast! doesn't cause buffer overflows. There's something seriously wrong on your end. Bad RAM can also be one of the reasons for this along lots of other stuff.

 

It looks, that there are 2 english version (14,1 MB & 14,3 MB), one linked, one on homepage.

 

Any websites that might help me diagnose the problem?

 

Any chance you can scrap 98SE and load Windows 2000 Pro or XP Home? What are your laptop specs for cpu, memory, and hard drive?

If for some reason you think your memory or cpu is at fault you can make a bootable memtest cd (floppy and others are available too) and run it.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Otherwise see if you can run the Prime95 Torture Test (just stress testing > options > torture test > blend > ok) for 12-24 hours.
http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v2414.zip

If they pass maybe you can simply skip Avast! and load AVG free or AOL AVS.
http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp?

 

Orthos, Prime95 or memtest86 are good tools to check system stability.

 

Hi,

Just thought I post an update.
Yes, as ResZor suggested, there was something wrong with my Win 98se installation - despite using clean up tools and tests I never did get to the bottom of what it was exactly - may have been due to remnants of trojan Vundo infestation I picked up a few months ago (?) I removed the virus manually.

Anyway performed a backup restore with Acronis 8 and now have installed Avast Free - which is working very well for me. Despite having an old machine, it does not seem to slow system as much a my old NIS 2003 & I am also able to use automatic update function on Avast, which I always kept switched off with Norton, as the last time I had to do a system reinstall, I discovered was due to Norton Auto update failing. Why it did I never understood (I will still do the occasional manual update with Avast just to make sure) - but I love the way it tells you it's updated. While I am not visually impaired, I am amazed that other programmes to do think to add such vocal messages to their programmes (That's for all you software developers out there). It's a great idea for everyone, although AvastFree does allow you to switch them off.

One question - does Avast Free check for viruses when booting up like AVGFree seems to? While there is a bit of a pause no message appears to indicate that's what Avast may be doing. I like AVG for this reason, but I did find it slowed my system more and at the moment at least the detection seems either comparable or lower than Avast.

Many thanks to all those who replied to this thread.