AVG CTF problems
Posted by Konrad on December 27, 2008
A few days ago AVG, which is a nice lightweight and free anti virus program, started giving me strange error messages when I tried to update my AV definitions. It was complaining that the “CTF control files” had been corrupted somehow, but offered neither explanation nor remedy. After realising it wasn’t going to go away by itself 
, I did some digging and found the “ctf” files it was complaining about. To save you time looking, the files can be found in :
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avg8\update\download
Luckily this problem is very easy to fix, just delete the ctf files in that directory (but don’t touch the bin files as I believe these are the incremental AV definitions) and run a manual update.
I hope that helps anyone in a similar position. 
eksith said
Avast may be a better alternative than AVG in this regard. It takes care of maintenance with much less input from me. It installs with two icons in the tray, but you can “merge” one into the other.
The only down side may be that Avast does tend to consume a tiny bit more RAM. And once every blue moon, a program update may require a restart.
I don’t know if this is consistently the case, but Avast also tends to notice abnormal application behaviour sooner than AVG. That may really be the key to keeping a system secure as strange behaviour is often the only warning when AV definitions aren’t available yet for the latest virus out there.
On a side note… Happy New Year!
Konrad said
Hmm… will try this out on the next system that is short of AV software. Never had any issue with AVG before this, always found it lightweight and reliable. Happy New Year to you