AVG as on-demand only (no resident components) ?

Quick question to which I'm somehow unable to locate an answer for by searching:

Can current AVG 7.0 free home edition be run in on-demand only mode with no resident pieces running in the background?

And, is it (when run in this mode) compatible with other resident Antivirus programs?

 

A friend of mine who started with AVG paid but later switched to NOD. Has kept the AVG as a backup on demand scanner and reports no problems. So AVG free should work.

 

I cannot say for all antivirus programs. However, I am currently running it in that mode with NOD32. I also tested it in this mode with Avast when I used to have it as my realtime antivirus.

It does have some services that will run regardless. However, if you do not install the realtime scanner, it will not run. So, I would not expect any conflicts. I did not like the control center to always run. So, I simply did the custom install and then deleted all the startup "run" entries in the registry. This prevented the control center from running. Now, when I want to update, I just run the "avginet.exe" file. The services, AVG Alerter manager Server and AVG Update Service, I left unmodified. However, if you want to autoupdate, then leave the entries.

Anyway, hope this helps a bit.

 

You could do that with AVG 6, but with AVG 7, setting all services to 'Manual' breaks the program. One of its services (can't remember which one, I removed AVG about 10 months ago) won't start when needed.

That's what made me switch to Avast!, which still works when you take its services out of 'Automatic.'

 

If you want to disable all of AVG's running processes, to use it on demand only, right clicking the Sys tray icon and choosing 'quit control center' is not sufficient, since it will just exit the Control Center.

What you need to do, to disable the Resident Shield and other processes, is open the Control Center, double-click the Resident Shield and remove the checkmarks next to each item.

You will need to do the same for the e-mail scanner and all other functions.

See here:- http://www.netfaqs.com/windows/AntiVirus/AVG/7/email/index.asp

I don't use AVG, so I can't vouch for it, but what 666 says may be correct; namely that after disabling everything you are still left with a 'service' chugging away in the background!

 

OK. I decided to test mine. As I stated before, I removed all startup registry entries. This only left two services listed in the services mmc. These were the AVG Alerter Manager Server and AVG Update Service. I disabled them rather than set them for manual. I experienced NO breaks here in the program. The manual scanner came right up and the manual update exe file also worked. All without any services at all related to AVG. By the way, this is with AVG 7 Pro.

 

Thanks a bunch.

 

Oh, unlike AVg 6, the 7 release doesn't allow to unload the resident module once installed, or not in a clean way: the best I found is to reinstall it, and choose "custom install" ( like rx2pc said ): then you can efficiently unselect the resident module, and use it as as simple backup av.

That's what I'm doing for month without problems

 

I agree with rx2pc. This is the way I run AVG 7 free version. One difference though, on my system, in order to update the database, I have to temporarily set the AVG7update service to automatic and start it, update, then stop AVG7update service and set to disable. This can be done with a batch file.

 

That's exactly what was broken on my AVG 7 Free setup. Set the update service to manual and it does NOT start when needed.

Another annoying AVG feature was that it kept services running after I closed the program. On my computer, any program that doesn't understand the meaning of the red X in the top right corner has to go.

 

Hi halcyon,

I run AVG 7.0 on-demand, however, the system level processes are loaded on startup, which I just leave as is (I could just uncheck them from startup):
avgamsvr.exe - AVG Alert Manager
avgupsvc.exe - AVG Update Service

When I run on-demand, I double click my Quick Launch shortcut which brings up the AVG Free Edition - Test Center. It has a Check for Updates button that works just fine, also Scan Computer and Scan Selected Areas buttons.

My system is a WinXP Pro SP2 system. No AVG 7.0 Free Edition problems.

-- Tom

 

Easiest way to temporarily kill AVG is to use the task manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL). Kill the 3 avg services you see there and AVG is *gone*!

(I sometimes have to do this when installing programs that don't like AV programs running resident during install.)

- Jack

 

There's a couple of way to stop AVG's rts from running automatically.

One way is through Winpatrol <free> www.winpatrol.com ...go to the autostart list, and stop the AVG GUI interface from starting, then go to the services tab, doubleclick on the AVG services, and change their startup mode to manual.

The other way...which won't stop the GUI from starting (that'd have to be done in the registry, and I'd have to find which registry key it is)... is to stop the AVG services running, by going through services.msc.

To do this...Go to Start Menu, then Run, type in services.msc <enter>, double click on the AVG services <should contain AVG7 in it's title>, then change the startup mode to manual.