FAQs
First of all, ensure you are using Ad-Aware version 8.1 or higher.
You can check this by clicking the "About button" at the bottom right of the Ad-Aware mainscreen.
Ensure you have an active internet connection
Configure your firewall or any other security programs to allow Ad-Aware (aawservice.exe) network access. If necessary, you can temporarily turn off your firewall, but be sure to turn it on again after you have updated the Definitions File.
1. Open Ad-Aware main menu.
2. Click the 'Web Update' button to connect to the update server and download the latest software and definitions updates.
(if you're experiencing 'connection error' when clicking web-update, click here.)
3. When the update is complete, click 'Ok'.
If you are operating behind a proxy server, you will need to have your proxy server settings correctly configured in order to perform updates.
Go to Settings -> Updates and click proxy settings.
Tick the box beside "Enable Proxy", enter your proxy server address (in the format, proxyname:portnumber ) your username and password and click 'Ok'.
You can also manually download and update the definitions file.
1. Download from http://download.lavasoft.com/public/core.zip
2. Extract the file (core.aawdef) directly to the Ad-Aware folder, either:
XP:
* C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\Defs
Vista:
* C:\Program Data\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\Defs
(note: You can also go to, update->settings and click 'import' browse to where you have saved (core.aawdef), select this file then click 'open' and 'ok'.)
3. Close and restart Ad-Aware from the System Tray icon.
Download the Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition installation file: (Ad-AwareAE.exe) from the link sent to you via email shortly after your purchase had been processed.
Alternatively, log-in to the support center and download a new copy of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition here.
Freeware users will find it on download.com.
Once downloaded double-click the (Ad-AwareAE.exe) file and follow the on-screen instructions in the installation wizard to install
Your computer must be restarted to complete the installation. Click the option to "Restart now." At this point, you also have the option to enter your e-mail address to receive Lavasoft News and special offers
Click "Finish" to complete the installation process
Your computer will restart and Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition will be completely installed.
Log-in to the Lavasoft support center and download the Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition file (Ad-AwareAE.exe) here (click)
Once downloaded double-click the Ad-AwareAE.exe file and follow the on-screen instructions in the Installation Wizard to install. Ad-Aware 2008 will be uninstalled during installation of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition.
Your computer must be restarted to complete the installation. Click the option to "Restart now." At this point, you also have the option to enter your e-mail address to receive Lavasoft News and special offers.
Click "Finish" to complete the installation process.
Your computer will restart and Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition will be completely installed.
REGISTRATION PROCEDURE
1. Open the registration window by clicking the Register button at the bottom of the main status screen
2. Enter your Serial Number
3. Click 'Register'
Ad-Aware will connect to the Internet to validate your registration
"Thank you for registering Ad-Aware" will appear once successful, Click OK
5. Restart Ad-Aware to activate the Plus or Pro versions of Ad-Aware. To find your license information click on the Manage License button on the main status screen.
Note: Make sure that you have configured your firewall or any other security programs to allow Ad-Aware network access. If necessary, you can temporarily turn off your firewall, but be sure to turn it on again after you have completed the registration procedure.
Upgrading your software to the latest version
If Ad-Aware has been activated previously, you won't have to register your serial number again when installing a newer version of Ad-Aware.
When installing Ad-Aware, any previous version will be uninstalled and the license will be transfered to the new software version.
If you're experiencing a 'connection error' when clicking web-update please try updating from the start menu or use one of the workarounds below.
*Go to, C:\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware and right click on
AAWService.exe, select properties in popup menu and in the
Compatibility tab. Change the Compatibility mode to "Run this program
in compatibility mode for: Windows XP" , click ‘apply’ then ‘ok’. Do
the same for Ad-AwareAdmin.exe and then retry the web-update.
*Go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and locate "Lavasoft
Ad-Aware Service". Stop the Service (if started) and then right
click/properties. Under Logon, check "Allow service to interact with desktop", click OK and restart the service and then retry the web-update.
With Ad-Watch Live! turned on you will be notified when a change is being made to a protected area of your computer.
You can choose to allow or block the event as required.
If you received a warning while installing a valid update or printer driver for example (or other software) and mistakenly chose to block it, you will need to change Ad-Watch’s rules to allow the event.
To change or remove an Ad-Watch rule complete the following:
1. Click on the Ad-Watch icon in the Ad-Aware main screen
2. Under the Ad-Watch Module for Processes, Registry or Network, click Edit Rules
3. Find/ select the rule you want to change from the list and click on the drop down menu arrow on the right, change the action as required (i.e. Allow)
4. Click save, Ad-Watch will remember the setting.
Effective March 31, 2009, technical support and Definitions File updates for the following products will be discontinued:
Ad-Aware SE Plus
Ad-Aware SE Professional
Ad-Aware SE Enterprise
As Definitions File threat updates for Ad-Aware SE will not be issued after this date, please upgrade to the latest version of Ad-Aware – Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition – in order to stay protected from online threats.
Please follow the upgrade instructions below.
Ad-Aware SE Plus/Professional Customers:
If you have a valid Ad-Aware SE Plus or Professional license, you are eligible to upgrade to Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition free of charge.
To upgrade your software please contact us by logging-in to the Lavasoft Support Center.
You will receive a Serial Number and instructions on how to download and activate your license of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition.
Ad-Aware SE Enterprise Customers:
If you have valid Ad-Aware SE Enterprise licenses, you are eligible to update to Ad-Aware Enterprise 2.1 free of charge.
Please download Ad-Aware Enterprise 2.1 by logging-in to the Lavasoft Support Center at http://www.lavasoft.com/support/supportcenter and selecting the “Your Licenses” menu.
To receive a Support Center password reminder, please visit: http://www.lavasoft.com/support/supportcenter/request_password.php
If you need a new license, please visit our Ad-Aware product pages.
If your serial number/registration key/activation code has been lost, there is a quick and easy way to get it back.
1. Log in to the Support center: http://www.lavasoft.com/support/supportcenter/
2. In the left menu, under 'Support Center', select 'Your Licenses'.
3. Here you will find your license info. Below your license you can find a letter icon: 'E-mail Serial Number' and clicking it will automatically send an email with the serial number to your mail.
Note: the 'E-mail Serial Number' notification email may be filtered as spam. Please, check your spambox/ junkmail
When the License has expired, Ad-Aware will revert to the free edition. If your license time has not expired but the program has reverted to the Free edition, first please reboot your computer. If the software is still not activated correctly please re-enter your serial number in the 'Manage License' screen. You can get your serial number by logging into Lavasoft Support Center here (click). If you receive any error message when trying to re-activate the software or you need to transfer your license to a new PC please contact our support team through the Lavasoft Support Center here (click). Please include the hardware fingerprint and your license information, which can be found in the 'Manage License' screen.
Lavasoft ThreatWork is a feature of Ad-Aware that allows you to submit suspicious files for analysis via ThreatWork, an alliance of global anti-spyware security volunteers actively fighting online threats. After a scan, you can use ThreatWork to submit detected suspicious files directly to Lavasoft research analysts for an in-depth evaluation of a possible threat. After scanning using behavioral "Heuristics", the ThreatWork dialogue window will appear if an object selected for removal is not in Lavasoft?s Detection Database.
To submit a file via ThreatWork, in the ThreatWork dialogue window, select a suspicious file and select ?Submit.? You can also submit files via ThreatWork using drag and drop functionality. To submit a file, open ThreatWork through:
Ad-Aware (8.1, Anniversary Edition and later):
Ad-Aware's System Tray icon or from the Start menu / All programs / Ad-Aware / Toolbox / ThreatWork.
Ad-Aware 2008:
Start menu / All programs / Ad-Aware / ThreatWork.
From the ThreatWork window, you can submit files by either dragging and dropping files for submission; or by selecting items using the ?Add? button.
THE AD-AWARE ARCHITECTURE Ad-Aware consists of two main parts, the Service and the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
The GUI is the part of the program a user sees and needs in order to interact with the program itself; it contains menus, buttons and other controls that are necessary for a user to run the program. User action is passed from the GUI down to the Service, which contains the core functionality of the program.
The Service executes the action, and then reports the results back to the GUI, where it is presented to the user. What Is a Service? Services are Windows applications that are launched at system startup and then run in the background, not visible to the user.
What is the Benefit of a Service-Based Approach to Malware Removal? Malware that emerges today is increasingly complex, displaying wildly varying behavior and operating on many levels in the system. In order to stay a step ahead of these ever-changing security threats, an anti-spyware tool needs to be more powerful, multi-faceted and flexible than ever before.
The implementation of Ad-Aware as a Service facilitates this needed power and flexibility since a service runs with elevated rights on the system. This means that the user can work in user-mode while the Service maintains the elevated rights it needs in order to properly detect and remove malware infections.
How Does This Affect Resource Use? During a scan, the CPU use of the Service will vary parts of the scan are labor-intensive and require a lot of processing power, which can make the computer's performance sluggish. Other parts require less computing power and have little impact on the overall performance of the system. When the service is idle, virtually no CPU power is required, making the impact on system performance negligible.
As for memory use, the service does require a bit of memory, most of which is needed for storing the threats in the Detection Database. It is important to note, however, that when the Service is not in use, the lion's share of this memory is paged to the Swap file. In non-technical terms, this means that the hard drive is used to store data that is not currently in use, and then retrieves the data when needed, which makes the actual working memory (RAM) available for other applications.
(Important: Please make sure to install the correct driver for the operating system you are using!)
For a 32bit operating system.
Go to, (the default installed location)
C:\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\drivers\32
Right click on the 'lbd.inf' file and choose install, reboot the computer.
For a 64bit operating system.
Go to, (the default installed location)
C:\Program Files(x86)\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\drivers\64
Right click on the 'lbd.inf' file and choose install, reboot the computer.
If you are online behind a proxy server, you will need to have your proxy server settings correctly configured to update Ad-Aware.
Go to Settings -> Updates and click proxy settings.
Tick the box beside "Enable Proxy"
Enter your proxy server address (in the format, proxyaddress:portnumber ), your username and password and click 'Ok'
When the Ad-Aware Tray icon has an exclamation mark over it, this means that an Ad-Watch update has being downloaded but the computer has not being restarted for Ad-Watch to be fully updated.
Restart your computer to complete the update
Ad-Aware 8.1 supports Vista (32 & 64-bit)
Ad-Aware Game Edition supports Vista (32 & 64-bit)
Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition supports Vista (32 & 64-bit)
Ad-Aware 2008 supports Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)
Ad-Aware 2007 supports Vista (32-bit) from version 7.0.2.1 onwards
After a scan is finished the 'Scan Results' screen is shown, detected objects are listed by family and are given a pre-selected Lavasoft 'recommended action' defined by Lavasoft experts.
The infection type, total number of objects, their TAI rating and the action to perform are also shown.
To change an Action click on the drop-down menu under the Action heading.
The following actions are available.
Custom: You can change the Action by clicking on "Custom Action" or by clicking on the description menu at the end of that particular Family.
Remove all: Delete all objects for a particular family from your system.
Quarantine all: Add all objects for a particular family to Quarantine; isolate and back-up the object in quarantine, where it does not pose a threat to your system.
Add To Ignore List: Add the object to the Ignore List; keep the item on your system and make sure it is not detected in future scans.
Allow all Once: Allow the objects for a particular family to stay on the system. During the next scan, the objects will be detected again.
Repair all: Ad-Aware will attempt to repair all objects for a particular family.
Note: Selected action for a particular family will be applied only to objects that selected action can be applied to.
To change an Action for single detected object from the recommended action, choose custom and select one of the following custom actions.
Quarantine: Add the object to Quarantine; isolate and back-up the object in quarantine, where it does not pose a threat to your system.
Remove: Delete the object from your system.
Add To Ignore: Add the object to the Ignore List; keep the item on your system and make sure it is not detected in future scans.
Allow Once: Allow the object to stay on the system. During the next scan, the object will be detected again.
Repair: Repair detected object (available only for specific objects).
Select the required action for each object from the drop-down menu and then click "Perform Actions Now".
Ad-Aware will apply the required action for each detected object and present you with the "Scan Summary? screen.
An Ad-Aware background scan is designed not to slow down your computer during scanning.
A background scan will only use available resources while you are using other applications.
If there are a lot of applications running (less resources available), the background scan will take longer depending on your computer's capabilities.
Once you have closed other applications, scanning will run at full speed.
The scan log file is a detailed information log about the scan.There are two ways to create a scan log file.
From the Main Status screen click 'Statistics' and select the scan which you require the log file for from the scan statistics drop down menu.
Click on the "Export Scan Log" and save the scan log file as a text file to your computer.
Or-
After a scan is completed on the 'Scan Summary Screen',
Click on the "Export Scan Log" and save the scan log file as a text file to your computer.
Detected objects are listed by family and are given a pre-selected SmartSet recommendation defined by Lavasoft experts. Lavasoft SmartSet makes scanning and cleaning as easy as possible by providing automatically configured settings for scans, and by providing recommended actions for found objects.
The latest version of Ad-Aware is Ad-Aware Internet Security, available here
TrackSweep is a privacy tool that allows you to remove traces of your Internet browsing from your system. Check the options of your choice, see below, and click the 'Clean' button to clean your system. You can choose to clean the following areas: * Cache: Clears your browser cache, or Temporary Internet Files. * Cookies: Clears browser cookies, i.e. data that a website saves on your computer's hard drive and retrieves when you revisit the site. * History: Clears your full history of visited websites. * Last typed URLs: Clears the list of last accessed URLs from the web browser address bar. * Browser tabs: If you use tabbed browsing, your browser tabs will be cleared.
· You can download Ad-Aware 8.1 Free at www.download.com
If you have a valid license for Plus/Pro versions, when you install this latest version your license will be automatically transfered to Ad-Aware 8.1 during installation.
Simply click on the 'update now' button and download the latest Ad-Aware installation file (Ad-AwareInstallation.exe).
The link will redirect to the Ad-Aware Free page on Download.com. Note: The installation file for Ad-Aware Free (Ad-AwareInstallation.exe) is the same as for Plus and Pro.
Installation instructions:
Once downloaded double-click the Ad-AwareInstallation.exe file and follow the on-screen instructions in the Installation Wizard to install. Ad-Aware anniversary edition will be uninstalled during installation of Ad-Aware.
Your computer must be restarted to complete the installation. Click the option to "Restart now." Click "Finish" to complete the installation process
The program will download any available updates.
Your computer will then restart and Latest version of Ad-Aware (Ad-Aware 8.1) will be completely installed.
Please Note: Your license will be transfered to this latest version on installation.
Alternative download locations:
· Download the Ad-Aware Installation file: (Ad-AwareInstallation.exe) from the link sent to you via email shortly after your purchase had been processed.
· Log-in to the support center and download a new copy of Ad-Aware (click) here, from the link in the ‘My Downloads’ section.
· Freeware users can download Ad-Aware 8.1 at www.download.com
· Log-in to the support center and download the latest version of Ad-Aware (click) here, from the link in the ‘My Downloads’ section.
· Download the Ad-Aware 8.1 Installation file: (Ad-AwareInstallation.exe) from the link sent to you via email shortly after your purchase had been processed.
Changing the skin in Ad-Aware will not affect the functionlity of the software.
Switching to a different skin will just change the graphical features like buttons and colours and the general appearance.
The skin setting can be accessed in "Advanced mode", via the "Settings" button and clicking on the "Customize" tab. Select your skin from the drop down menu list.
