I upgraded to the new Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 recently. Since that time, my computer's performance has slipped considerably. I didn't connect this to the new Ad-Aware until yesterday when I started to investigate possible reasons for this.

This is what I found:

1. Ad-Aware 2007 (even the free version) installs its self as a "service" called aawservice.exe. This service loads with Windows and is on the system all the time whether or not Ad-Aware is being used to scan the computer. It also accounts for a hugh amount of RAM being used when it is loaded.

2. I went to www.processlibrary.com to find out what aawservice.exe was and found this:

http://www.processlibrary.com/direct...aawservice.exe. It was only then that I realized that the new Ad-Aware (free one) had installed itself as a service. No free Ad-Aware I had used before had done this!

3. I went into my services and disabled aawservice.exe. But, then Ad-Aware wouldn't run at all. I was getting very mad that a free app I had used for a long time had now installed itself as a service (unnecessarily, since the free one offers no real-time protection).

4. I Googled aawservice.exe and found this thread at the Lavasoft forum: http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index...&st=0&p=44081&.

I followed the instructions in Post #20 by pmc2 to set aawservice.exe to "Manual" in my Services and create a start.bat file to put into the Ad-Aware file folder.

5. This worked for me so now I can use Ad-Aware 2007 when I want to (using start.bat) and don't have the service running all the time (which was slowing my computer down big time).

One caution about doing this: Only Admin accounts can run the app using the start.bat file. So, if you have a computer where Limited Users want to run Ad-Aware, you will have to let the service run all the time.

Hope this helps others with the same problem I had.

Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with Ad-Aware SE I think.

btw, winpatrol will stop any app installing a service or startup.
http://www.winpatrol.com/

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Get the free proggie "starterxp" - very comfy to disable startup and running services, then fix it the hard way. ,)

Thanks for that link pepsi , just finished making the bat file, works fine in vista as well.

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@siofwolves--You're right about Win Patrol. If I had it installed when I installed Ad-Aware 2007, it would have caught the "service" installation right away. Didn't have it then, but do now. "Scotty" is on patrol cleaning up cookies with nuts (among other things)!

@PFCdude--You are welcome. That's what forum friends are for. LOL

An update for the new ad aware for vista users, It appears that the .bat file may not be needed after all in vista, after stopping the service and setting it to manual I was still able to start the process by right clicking the ad-aware exe and running it as admin.

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So, PFCdude, are you saying in Vista that you can run the app as Admin and then when you close out Ad-Aware 2007 that aawservice.exe automatically turns itself off? If this is the case, this would be one of the few pluses that I see in Vista.

I tried this with WinXP Pro. When I closed out Ad-Aware 2007, I had to manually stop aawservice.exe in my Services. So, doesn't work in WinXP.

Could have somthing todo with the UAC , user account control. With this enabled applications have the "run as admin" option in the right click context menu , or it could just be a mishap with ad aware itself. I just tried it again by right clicking and running as admin and the service runs and so does the application.

here is a strange screenie... seems that ad aware runs in vista... without the service running :S

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OK, but when you are finished (closed out the app) does Vista turn off aawservice.exe automatically? '

'Cause if not, then it works just like WinXP. I can use the app by just opening it with the regular icon (not using start.bat) and when I am finished (app closed out) I can go in and manually turn off aawservice.exe in my Services. This is with the service set to "Manual" and turned off to begin with.

This is strange. Did you discover this after writing that using Ad-Aware 2007 turns on the service when you run as admin? Or what? I am confused now.

In the thread that I linked to at the Lavasoft forum, knowledgeable ppl said that Ad-Adware won't run correctly without the service running also.

I know that WinXP Pro won't let the app run at all if I disable aawservice.exe.