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How to install AVG Antivirus Free on Windows

 

This article will cover a normal ( default ) installation of AVG Antivirus Free Edition, version 8.5 on Windows XP and Vista. We will also show you how to update AVG Antivirus Free Edition or how you can perform a full system scan. Before anything else, in case that you don't have the antivirus software, you can download AVG Antivirus Free Edition from here. So, let's start with the first thing that we will see after we have our antivirus copy. Navigate to where you downloaded the antivirus program and make sure to open it. The program should look like in this picture :

 

 

Please click on the program and you should see another window that will start extracting AVG Antivirus files needed to start the installation wizard.

 

 

After the setup will extract the files you should see a welcome window message "Welcome to the AVG Free Setup Program". Choose your setup language ( default language is English ) and click on "Next" button.

 

 

Now you should see an "Acceptance Notice" window that tells you that this copy of AVG Antivirus is intended for personal, home use only. Please read everything and if you agree click on the "Accept" button.

 

 

Again, now it's time for "license Agreement" window, please read all the terms stated on the "license Agreement" and if you agree with them, click on "Accept" button.

 

 

You should see another window that asks you to "Select Installation Type" and you can choose between "Standard Installation" or "Custom Installation". In this article we are going to choose the "Standard Installation" ( it's the default installation ) and to do that make sure to select it and click on "Next" button.

 

 

Now you should see the "Activate your AVG Free license" window. I really don't understand why that license number it's being displayed since the antivirus it's free, however we are going to click on "Next" button to move further.

 

 

An additional feature called "AVG Security Toolbar" allows you to install it on your computer. I have install it but honestly it's not very useful for this free version, it has all features in paid versions so you can choose to install it or skip it. To install your antivirus without this security toolbar, make sure to uncheck "Yes, I would like to install the AVG Security Toolbar". So it's up to you if you want to install it or not. To continue with the installation click on "Next" button.

 

 

In the following window called "Setup Summary" you can review one more time the path to the installation folder, the license user and the license type. If those settings are correct press on the "Finish" button. Otherwise you may use the "Back" button and return to make changes.

 

 

If you clicked on "Finish" button, you should see now the installation window that is currently installing AVG Antivirus Free Edition on your computer. Please be patient as this may take a couple of seconds or minutes depending on your performance.

 

 

If everything went well your should see a new window that informs you with a "Installation complete" message. Press the "OK" button to continue with the "AVG First Run Wizard".

 

 

Although the installation process has finished, there are few steps named ""AVG First Run Wizard" that will configure our antivirus. In the first step "Step 1 of 8: Introducing the AVG First Run Wizard " click on the "Next" button.

 

 

The next step called "Step 2 of 8: Schedule regular scans and updates" AVG Wizard asks you about the update and scan process. You can leave it as it is, however if you want to scan manually your computer you can uncheck the box that says "Enable daily scanning ( recommended )" and click on "Next" button.

 

 

The next step called "Step 3 of 8: Help us to identify new threats" will ask you if you agree to provide informations about detected threats to AVG. You can leave it as it is and click on "Next" button.

 

 

Pay attention to this step called "Step 4 of 8: Configure the AVG Security Toolbar" that asks you nicely if you want to change your search engine to Yahoo. If you want to use Yahoo Search make sure to check that box "Yes, change my default search engine to Yahoo!". If you already use a search engine and you don't want to change it, click on "Next" button.

 

 

The next step called "Step 5 of 8: Update AVG protection" asks you about the immediately update process. It's going to search for any available updates and it's going to download them. You can skip this step but I strongly recommend you to leave it as it is. For an immediate update click on the "Next" button.

 

 

The next step is called "Step 6 of 8: AVG Update" and it's doing as the name suggests an update ( if available ) to the antivirus database. You should see the progress ( please be patient ) in a window similar with this picture :

 

 

Once the update finishes, you should see the same window displaying this message : "Update was finished successfully." Please click on the "Next" button to continue with the "AVG First Run Wizard".

 

 

The next step called "Step 7 of 8: Register AVG Anti-Virus Free" tells you more things about the benefits for registering your free license. I chosed to skip it as this article would become huge but you can choose to register by using the "Register AVG Anti-Virus Free" button. To continue with the wizard, click on the "Next" button.

 

 

The last step, step 8 called "Step 8 of 8: AVG protection configuration is complete" informs you that AVG has been successfully configured. You can now press the "Finish" button as you have correctly installed and configured AVG Antivirus Free Edition.

 

 

The main purpose of this article was to show you how to install AVG but I believe that if would be useful if I would show you how to access the main interface, how to perform an update and finally how to perform a full computer scan. I didn't want to expand this article ( there are a lot of pictures and it can increse load times on dial-up connections ) but it seems to me that it would become more complete. Now, that you have finished the installation, let's open AVG Antivirus Free, better said let's access the program interface. To do so, look on your desktop for an AVG Antivirus icon or look on your taskbar on the right corner for the AVG icon. To help you to locate it, I have a picture that shows you a way to get access to this antivirus interface :

 

 

And here it is, the AVG Antivirus interface will open and it may look like in the following picture ( at the time that this article was written, the current version is 8.5 ).

 

 

As the interface it's very simple and intuitive to use we are going to perform an update manually. To do so, look on the left bar ( having the blue colour ) and click on the "Update Now" button. The antivirus will start to update his databases if there are new definitions available for download.

 

 

After the update process, it's now time to perform a full computer scan. Again, return to antivirus interface, look on the left blue bar and click on "Computer scanner" button. You can now perform two types of scan, the first one called "Scan whole computer" and the second one called "Scan specific files or folders". We are going to use the firsty option called "Scan whole computer".

 

 

 

If you clicked on "Scan whole computer" it means that your antivirus is going to scan your entire computer. Once that will start scanning, it will look like in the following picture :

 

 

When the scan process will end, it will display you the results, as you can see in the following picture, my antivirus finished the scan in 3 minutes and a couple of seconds ( I have just installed Windows and I don't have any programs or files on it, this is why he moved so fast - and yes I have a powerful computer ).

 

 

You may now click on "Close results" button ( after the scan ends ) and you will be taken back to software interface.

Now that you have learned how to install AVG Antivirus Free on Windows and you know how to update and perform a full scan of your computer I would like to remind you that you should use one antivirus software at a time on a single computer to avoid any conflicts. Also, there are some issues related to update problems or some new issues that are found after a new version of AVG is being released. You can check our section of FAQ related to AVG Antivirus since we try to keep this section updated with the most known problems and you can always download the latest versions. As a final advice I would like to mention that the best protection is always prevention. Make sure to have your antivirus updated daily, make sure to have the latest system updates and also make sure to have a firewall on your computer.