Avira Antivirus and UAC Prompts

[SevenOfNine]

Asking this for a friend: Does anyone here use Avira Antivirus? When you perform a scan using Avira's Windows Explorer shell extension (context menu), do you get a UAC prompt each time?

 

[Jacee]

Yes, I use Avira Internet Security and no UAC prompts. Run the program as Administrator.

 

[Alejandro85]

It's clearly a bug, a known one in fact.
I cannot find any official reference right now, but forums all around are complaining about that, and it seems to have little official word on the matter.

I used to use Avira some time ago and have experienced that too. It happens with any on-demand scan, be it on the shell extension or on the main interface. It was introduced in version 14 (13 and earlier run just fine even by standard users). BTW, it was precisely this critical flaw what drive me away Avira finally
I have no idea of a workaroud, or even if it's at all possible, other than rolling back to a previous version.

 

[SevenOfNine]

Yes, I use Avira Internet Security and no UAC prompts. Run the program as Administrator.

I followed the instructions in https://technet.microsoft.com/magazine/ff431742.aspx and modified their system by making the following change to Avira Launcher:

• To apply the setting to all users on the computer and regardless of which shortcut is used to start the application, click Change Setting For All Users to display the Properties dialog box for the application’s .exe file, select the Run This Program As An Administrator check box, and then click OK twice.

The UAC prompt still appear every time they perform any scan from the context menu in Windows Explorer (or any file manager).

Interestingly, that changed the behavior of their Avira system tray icon quite a bit.

I then performed the same action on the shortcut to "Start Avira Antivirus" (which runs avcenter.exe). No effect on UAC prompts after doing that.

After each step, I rebooted their system.

It didn't shock me that it didn't work, since neither of those shortcuts actually is responsible for loading Avira Antivirus when the system starts. On the other hand, the change in behavior of the system tray icon is very interesting.

Is there a technique you used that works?

 

[SevenOfNine]

It's clearly a bug, a known one in fact.
I cannot find any official reference right now, but forums all around are complaining about that, and it seems to have little official word on the matter.

I used to use Avira some time ago and have experienced that too. It happens with any on-demand scan, be it on the shell extension or on the main interface. It was introduced in version 14 (13 and earlier run just fine even by standard users). BTW, it was precisely this critical flaw what drive me away Avira finally
I have no idea of a workaroud, or even if it's at all possible, other than rolling back to a previous version.

Why wouldn't they fix such a major detraction from their tool? No one online has found a fix?

 

[Jacee]

Is this Avira 'free' or paid for?

 

[SevenOfNine]

Is this Avira 'free' or paid for?

It is their free antivirus product. Although since the paid product is the same software, just with some added features, I would guess it has the same implementation.

I'm unclear if everyone deals with this issue, or if there is something wrong with my friend's installation.

Your post seems to indicate that it is not normal, but Alejandro85's post indicates just the opposite.

Since millions of people use Avira, I would think a fair number of people on this forum use it. Not sure why so few people are chiming in. Maybe people don't know what UAC is?

 

[Alejandro85]

Why wouldn't they fix such a major detraction from their tool? No one online has found a fix?

I have no idea really. But it's a long standing bug and apparently they have no intentions of fixing it, it's neither something you can change with a setting, seems that it's within the inner workings of the AV engine that imposes that only admins can scan files. I agree that it's utterly wrong to impose such ridiculous restriction, but other that going back to version 13 (when this bug didn't existed yet) I have no idea how to change it.

I'm unclear if everyone deals with this issue, or if there is something wrong with my friend's installation.

Many people have already stumped against this bug. A quick Google search reveals the following:
https://answers.avira.com/es/question/why-cant-a-user-other-than-admin-run-a-scan-15380
https://www.reddit.com/r/24hoursupp..._enable_virus_scanning_for_nonadmin_accounts/
Standard User needs Administrator password for starting antivirus - Microsoft Community
https://answers.avira.com/en/questi...pop-ups-when-scanning-individuall-files-17460
windows 7 - Does Avira Antivirus require responding to a UAC prompt for EACH manual scan? - Super User

The very same question in different places and the answer is always the same "we don't know and Avira doesn't responds to complains". Some of those posts are quite dated too, months, if not a year old. Again, a widely known bug.
Maybe Jacee didn't find it herself because she's using an outdated version (that hasn't been hit by the bug)? Or she has UAC disabled or in auto-allow mode?

Maybe people don't know what UAC is?

Or most likely they have it disabled Another common complain chilling "I'm admin I want to do anything!!!!".
What people don't know is what security is to begin with. I find it shocking, although not surprising how many threads on the security subforum here talk about antiviruses, but very few ask about security!
But that's another history.