Fix: Avast won’t Open [Complete Guide]

Avast is a really famous third-party antivirus that is used by a lot of people to make their computers more secure than the Windows Defender Firewall. We have recently received reports from users who have told us that Avast won’t open on their Windows computers and we took it upon ourselves to provide you with a comprehensive guide to fix this issue completely.

What Prevents Avast from Opening?

After going through some basic troubleshooting instructions, we came to the conclusion that the following are some of the major reasons due to which Avast won’t Launch.

• Damaged Installation: Avast’s Installation on your computer might not have been processed properly due to which you are unable to open it properly. Therefore, if Avast isn’t launching on your computer, it is recommended to perform a repair and check if you are able to fix it.
• Glitched Service: In some situations, it is possible for the Antivirus to be glitched out or one of its components to be glitched out. Therefore, if Avast won’t open on Windows, it is best to restart this service and check to see if doing so gets rid of the issue for you.
• Outdated Operating System: It is possible that the operating system that you are using has been outdated and requires you to install the latest available updates in order to run Avast properly.

Now that we have gone through some potential triggers behind this issue, we can finally move on towards fixing the Avast won’t open issue.

Before we start:

1. Click on the “^” icon located on the taskbar and right-click on Avast’s icon.
2. Now hover over the “Avast Shield Control” option and select “Disable Permanently”.

   

3. Now wait for approximately 10 minutes and select “Enable All Shields” from the “Avast Shield Control” menu.

Fix Avast won’t Open Issue:

Solution 1: Repair Avast

1. Press “Win + R” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the Run box and search for the “appwiz.cpl” command.

   

2. Now right-click on “Avast” and select “Uninstall” from the pop-up menu.

   

3. From the Uninstallation wizard window, click on the “Repair” button and click “OK” to confirm the repairing of the program.

   

4. Now follow the on-screen instructions to complete the repairing process and when the process is finished, reboot your system and see if you encounter the avast won’t open issue again.

Solution 2: Restart Avast Antivirus Service

1. Press “Win + R” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the Run box and search for “services.msc” command.

   

2. From the right side of the window, locate and double-click on the “Avast Antivirus” service to open its properties wizard.

   

3. If the service is already running, click on the “Stop” button to terminate the service immediately.
4. Now select “Automatic” from the drop-down menu located parallel to the “Startup Type” option and then click on the “Start” button to initiate the service again.

   

Note: While restarting the service if you receive an error message that states “Windows could not start the Avast Antivirus service on Local Computer. Error 1079: The account specified for this service differs from the account specified for other services running in the same process.”, follow the instructions indexed below to rectify this error:

1. In the service’s properties window, navigate to the “Log On” tab, and click on the “Browse” button.

   

2. Type in your account name in the text field associated with “Enter the object name to select” and then click on “Check Names”.

   

3. Now wait till the name becomes available and then click on “OK”.
4. After applying the above settings, check whether the avast won’t open issue is resolved now.

Solution 3: Clean boot your PC

1. Press “Win + R” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the Run box and search for “msconfig” command.

   

2. Under the “Services” tab, check the box parallel to “Hide all Microsoft Services” and then click on the “Disable all” button.

   

3. Now navigate to the “Startup” tab and then click on the “Open Task Manager” option.

   

4. Now select all the startup services one by one and click on “Disable” to prevent them from starting at the time of startup.

   

5. After propagating these changes, reboot your computer and try to open Avast again to see if the issue still persists.

Solution 4: Tweak Repository Settings

1. Click on the “Search” button and type in “cmd”.
2. Now right-click on the “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator” from the pop-up menu.

   

3. Now type the following commands, one by one, and hit enter to execute them:

   winmgmt /verifyrepository
   winmgmt /resetrepository

4. If running the above commands shows an error message that states “WMI repository is inconsistent -problems detected”, then we recommend you to execute the following command in the command prompt too:

   winmgmt /salvagerepository

5. When the above commands are executed successfully, reboot your computer and see whether the avast won’t open issue persists.

Solution 5: Perform a Clean Install

1. Launch your favorite browser and download the Avast free antivirus and the Avast uninstall utility on your computer and then disconnect your computer from the internet after downloading these programs.
2. Now hit the “Win + R” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the Run box and search for “msconfig” command.

   

3. Under the “Boot” tab, check the box parallel to “Safe mode” and “Minimal”.

   

4. Now click on the “Apply” button and reboot your computer to enter the safe mode.
5. Now run the “Avast Uninstall Utility” and browse manually to the folder where the Avast is installed already.
6. Click on the “Uninstall” button and when the uninstallation process is finished, double-click on the installed file and follow the on-screen instructions to install the tool.
7. Reboot your computer into “Normal mode” and proceed to launch Avast to see if it opens normally.

Solution 6: Check for Windows updates

1. Press “Win + I” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the System Settings and then navigate to the “Update and Security” option.

   

2. From the left pane, select “Update Windows” and then click on the “Check for updates” button to check if there is any update available for your windows.

   

Solution 7: Contact Support

If none of the solutions explained above have helped you resolve this problem from your computer, then we recommend you to contact Avast customer support. Just visit their official support website and explain your problem to the Avast team. They will shortly get back to you with an effective solution that will surely rectify this issue from your computer.

Workaround:

Some users have reported that outdated device drivers installed on their systems prevented Avast antivirus software to launch properly. So, we recommend you to update all your device drivers using Driver Easy. All you have to do is to install the tool on your PC, scan for all the outdated device drivers and then update them all at ones.

Hopefully, the error might have gone by now but if you need further assistance, contact here.