Hi,

I have exactly the same problem, tried the same steps, no luck. I do not have Spybot, but I do have Symantec Antivirus client, which I have had forever and so far it has coexisted well with Adaware.

Anymore suggestions?

Thanks.

Hi
disable Symantec ( former Norton ) complete and try again plz
Regards
Raziel

None of the suggestions help. I note in the task manager that "aawservice.exe" is continually running, and cannot be permanently stopped. At this point the Adware utility is acting more like a virus than an application. Can anyone offer any meaningful help in unintstalling this tool, so I can upgrade to the latest?

Thanks in advance.

OK, I found a fix.

In looking at the Task Manager, I found that the old Ad-Aware executable was running, all the time and could not be shut off. I believe it became corrupted, and just got into some kind of endless scanning loop that could not be shut off.

If you killed the process manually from the Task manager, or using any other method, it would only cease temporarily and then begin re-running, on it’s own.

So, when you try to un-install from the Windows utility (or using any other method) you cannot, because unbeknownst to you, the process still running in the background. No installer that I know of can uninstall a process that is still running. Also, you cannot update the Ad Aware software for the same reason. I have a two processor machine, and the Task Manager showed that it used 50% of my processing capacity, which means it was pretty much sucking up an entire processor.

The FIX, is to open the Task Manager, and locate the process called “aaservice.exe”. If you sort by memory used you will find it at the top of the list, as it is using a huge amount of resources.

Terminate this process manually using the Task Manager. It will terminate the service for a minute or two, and then will relaunch, no matter what you do.

Now, open up your un-install utility from the control panel and locate the Ad Aware application. Get ready to hit the REMOVE button.

Before you do, go back to the Task Manager and be sure the process is still terminated. It may have relaunched in the time it took for you to go through all this, if so, Terminate it again, manually.

Now quickly go back to the un-install utility and quickly hit the REMOVE button to un-install Ad Aware. If you’re fast enough, it will work!

I hope this helps somebody else.

There is a much simpler method of stopping the aawservice.exe, to enable an uninstall or reinstall - go to "Start > Run", type in services.msc and locate the Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service.

Highlight it, then click on "Stop the service" - this is also much safer than stopping running processes in Task Manager (the warning prompt is there for a reason).




The service is deliberately meant to run constantly in the background. Please see this "sticky" post on the subject: Why does Ad-Aware AE use a service?

Regards,

Spike

Thanks for the reply. I had tried the method you suggest after doing a search and finding this thread:

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?s...mp;#entry102106

I found the same result as the OP noted, namely, it does not work as you cannot stop the service using this method, at least with the corrupted file I (and the poster on the referenced thread) had.

The method I suggest, however in-elegant, does work.

I suggest that this is a more common problem than most would think, and cannot be fixed with any of the suggestions that I see repeated on this forum.

Hi,

Another possible method, if the "Stop the service" doesn't appear in Start > Run > services.msc" is to right-click on the "Lavasoft AAWService" and select Properties.

On the General tab, try changing the "Start-up type" from Automatic to either Manual or Disabled, close back to the desktop and reboot.

Of course, if the file is actually corrupted, that could be the cause of your problems, as you say.

Regards,

Spike


(NB: Duplicate post deleted).