Remove AVG 2013 Nag Box

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I’ve had several problems, with friends/customers that use AVG 2013 FREE, being told that their trial period is over and they are unprotected.

I suspect that what has happened is that they clicked on an upgrade option in the drop down “Nag Box” at the bottom of the AVG control panel. So this fix deals with just that one premise.

In the AVG 2013 FREE program there is just one file that is responsible for showing the Nag Box, and that one file is “bnfree.mht”, found in the AVG program files folder. Changing the name of that file, or just deleting it, will solve the Nag Box problem.

In the AVG 2013 Internet Security program (the paid version) rename all the files ending in .mht and the Nag Box will be gone.

This is a fairly simple process, for those with the technical expertise to do it.
It probably should not be attempted by casual users.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

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Doctor,
This worked like charm on my Win XP laptop but I couldn’t delete the file on my new computer with Windows 7 Home Premium. A message came when I tried to delete the bnfree.mht file saying I needed permission from System. I’m logged on as administrator with full rights but can’t delete this file. I poked around for awhile with permissions amd “inherited permissions” and everything I tried ended with an “Acess Denied”. Don’t consider myself a casual user but maybe there’s something about AVG and/or Win 7 that’s preventing this? Thanks for the info.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Try right clicking the file and choose Take Ownership. If you do not have the Take Ownership in the Right Click Context menu, How to Geekshows how to add it.

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Or, you might want to get Take Ownership on Steriods…..
That would be “Grant Admin Full control” which you can download here:
https://www.box.com/s/hfjzhq3z64e2f475dvn1

Install it, and then in your drop down Right Click Context Menu you can take control
over any file or folder, except the Root Directory.

You also need to shut down AVG 2013. To do that, just right click on the AVG icon
in your system tray and they click on the line that says “Temporarily disable AVG protection”.

Once you OWN the AVG program folder and you’ve shut down AVG, renaming or deleting the
‘bnfree.mht’ file is no problem.*

* I’m still not sure just why, but often I’ve found that I can just rename a file instead of deleting it.
Also, be aware that subsequent AVG updates might replace that file, so you would then have to repeat
the process of disabling it.

Good Luck,
Dr Who

EDIT: This worked on the 2012 version but does not work on the 2013 version.
Sorry, I’ve not found anything that does…..so far.
May 19, 2013

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Thanks very much for your reply. I had done as you said and disabled the AVG program via the systray icon. I then had no problem at all deleting the bnfree.mht file. That’s all it took. No more nag box. I’ve been using Win XP and am new to Win 7 and I completely skipped over Vista. I’m always looking for good tweaks. Thanks!

CEScott

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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