Avira Antivirus has gained popularity as a serious and reliable antivirus system from Germany. Unlike competitors, including Kaspersky and Norton, Avira is often touted as “bloatware-free,” meaning it does what it’s supposed to do without consuming too many system resources in the process.
We found Avira to be a very good alternative to many of the more popular antivirus applications – it provides an effective solution without inhibiting the underlying performance of your system. However, it suffers from a core problem: if you load it on your system, it may appear to not load.
The way Avira works is with a “loader” system. This works similar to Windows Control Panel and essentially means you can manage your Antivirus/Internet Security/etc. without having to load each app individually. This loader is what most people feel is not showing up after installing Avira.
Typical symptoms of the problem are that it will install Avira and then try to load it by clicking on its icon (either from the desktop or from the “quick launch” bar). While your “click” is being recorded (it looks like your system is actually doing something), nothing happens.
The problem is that the Avira “service” does not load correctly. This is usually due to a permissions issue with Windows, but it can have other causes that are too numerous to list.
The solution is to close the Avira service and then reload it. This should cause the system to load on your screen, allowing you to install/uninstall the various components you need, or make the system work as effectively as possible:
- Press the Windows + R keys on your keyboard
- Type “services.msc” and press OK
- This will load the “services” window; scroll down to “Avira Service Host”
- Right click and select “Start”
- Close the window
- Double click on the “Avira” icon again
- This time, it should load
The most important thing to note with this is that it is designed to work as well as possible on as many systems as possible. If it doesn’t load after doing the above, you’ll need to restart your PC and then try the steps again.
There are often issues with services that are called before an application loads, which need to be resolved by making sure the system can read the application correctly.
