Avast! anti-virus problem
 

The latest upgrade of the Avast! anti-virus (I got upgraded today) has a new feature called "sandboxing" or some such.

It is set up to decide all by itself if a programme is "suspicious" and then does something or other - no idea what really.

But the effect on both games is as follows:
- In full screen mode, after a key press or two, the game terminates with no warning, straight to the desktop.
- In Windowed mode, at least a red border is drawn round the game window to let you know it does not like it.. Again, after a key press or two, it exits to the desktop without warning.

So I finally found this new "feature" in the file system tree, and set it to "ask" mode, in order to see what it's beef was. The default is "auto" or something like that, which seems to be "terminate programme".

Everything then worked perfectly, and there was no longer a red border round the game window in Windowed mode! :confused:.

This "sand box" mode is a seriously weird "feature" IMHO, I'll probably turn it off like I did another new feature which "rates" the website you are visiting with a confidence bar thingy.

Anyway - if you get game termination and have just have just had your Avast! anti-virus update, you know what to do now.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Avast! anti-virus problem
 

Avast has had a sandbox since the previous update, at least 6 months ago the update must have just set it to on.
If it is the only sandbox you have on your system it is possibly worth leaving it on as it makes your computer far more secure.
It makes your PC run more like a Mac or Linux PC in that everything it does not recognise is run in a "sandbox" so it will stop it if it attempts to do anything that could concievably affect your system on auto.
As the winsp games are not common it does not recognise them so treats them as a possible threat.

Guessing here because I have mine switched off as run a sandbox already but if you switch it to ask when something new is run it will ask you if its safe & if you want to remember the answer. If you say yes & remember it will consider it safe from then on & not bother to run it in the sandbox or ask you in the future.

So from a security point of view assuming it remembers your answer it will only run the sandbox & ask if its safe the first time you run something new it does not recognise so anything "new" on your system needs your permision to run the first time so cant be snuck on.
Note if it does not have a treat as installer option in the answers I would strongly recomend turnig it off if you are about to installl something or else it will ask you continually as each thing is installed most likely.