Hi All, these articles about Avast are for those of us who have for whatever reason, moved over to using the Avast anti virus software. We are going to assume that we have already downloaded and installed the Avast software on our PC's at this point. We are going to work on setting up special screens within Avast "after" we have installed the software. There are special settings that can be applied to the Avast program in order to make it more user friendly when you wish to perhaps schedule a full scan of the computer etc. However I have found Avast has always been very good at doing its own thing and detecting anything it felt wasn't healthy for the PC. Let's assume we have finished the install of the Avast software and we are now sitting back on our desktop. 1. You can either arrow around or press the "letter A" to locate the Avast icon. 2. Press the enter key and wait a few moments for Avast to load up. 3. If this is the first time you have loaded up Avast after the installation, two things will happen; *. Avast will begin a memory scan of your PC. *. An edit box will pop up requesting a registration number from you. If you have already got a registration number then have it copied already to your clipboard from the email it came in and then you can simply paste it into this edit box, following up with a press of the enter key. If all is well it will come back saying you were successful and then you hit another ok button to finish off this part. 4. The memory test will probably still continue to run, depending on the amount of memory on your computer so if this is the case then don't worry about it. Note: you can if you wish any time you load up the Avast software from the desktop just tab over to the "stop scan button" and press the spacebar on it. Soon afterwards it will discontinue and you will be in the typical Avast screen which is a very basic screen and you cannot arrow around in here. In here for this time at least we will be using the "application key". 5. At this point one other screen may or may not appear. This screen will be a simple web page document and if you go to the bottom of this page then up arrow a few lines you will come to a checkbox which basically when checked tells Avast not to show this page again. Check it with the spacebar and then pres keys "alt + f4" to close it off for good. The above pints are the first part of the Avast setting up process after install. Now we will look at making the basic Avast screen a little more user friendly to work with. 1. After having completed the above steps, you should be positioned within the Avast standard screen. Now press the "application key" to open up its context menu. In here we find all of its various settings for scanning, updating, and other good stuff that it can do. The below instructions I took from another list where a user on their discusses how to modify the Avast screens. 1. Start Avast. 2. Wait for the memory test to be completed, You should now land on a dummy check box. 3. Press the applications key to open a context menu, down arrow to settings and press enter. The Programme Settings dialogue box appears, with the categories tree gaining focus. 4. Tab until you hear, "enable skins for simple user interface check box checked". Press space to uncheck it. 5. Tab to ok and press enter. You'll land back on the dummy check box. 6. Close and restart Avast. You should now be able to tab through the controls in this programme. Configuring JAWS to read lists in Avast: 1. Make sure that you're focused on the Avast Simple User Interface. 2. Press JAWS key 6 to open Configuration Manager. 3. Press enter to accept the New Configuration File dialogue box. 4. Press alt s to open the set options menu, then press a. The advanced Options dialogue box appears. 5. Shift tab till you hear, "Rely on MSAA for List Views check box not checked". Press space to check it. 6. Press enter to activate the ok button. 7. Either press control s to save your configuration file immediately, or press alt F4, pressing enter to activate the yes button on the confirm dialogue box. By doing these steps, you'll resolve an issue on some machines whereby JAWS stops speaking when focused on any of the lists in Avast. In the next article about using Avast I will tell you how you may use it to do a full scan of your PC should you wish to do so. Good luck, Paul. -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 4474 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. 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