I had installed a trial version of Avast Antivirus software on my laptop but now, I want to uninstall it to make way for another anti-virus software but I am not being able to get rid of Avast from the Control Panel. Avast is also stopping me from installing any other anti-virus software and has drastically slowed down my PC. How can I fix this issue?

—Rishav Jha

Dear Rishav,

Do not install any other anti-virus software when one is already running because this can cause severe miscommunication between these two problems that can adversely affect your computer. It is not advisable to install two antivirus software at the same time. Also, many anti-virus softwares are difficult to get rid of because the uninstaller might get corrupted or sometimes the programme is built that way so that you keep paying them for their services. If you’re having trouble getting rid of Avast, search for Avast Removal Tool on Google and download an application from the official Avast website that will help you get rid of the software. If that doesn’t work, try using this software called Revo Uninstaller and try to get rid of the software from there. Revo is a general uninstaller so try out the specific uninstaller for Avast first and if that doesn’t work, go for Revo. If nothing works, you might have to format your computer and start anew.

I own a HP 15 notebook which is almost six months old. I had no issues three weeks earlier but once I decided to upgrade to windows 10, my computer started showing issues. I, initially, had no problems except Cortana frequently popping up which I was able to fix by myself. But since I upgraded to Windows 10, there is an issue that is bothering me a lot. When I had Windows 8.1, my battery life was just fine; it used to run for about 10 hours if I downloaded anything continuously from torrent but since the upgrade, my battery doesn’t even last more than six hours. It’s worse if I choose to use my laptop continuously—when I run some applications, it doesn’t even last three hours. I want to fix this problem because I can’t even play FIFA for more than an hour on battery. Is there a way I can fix this?

—Nikesh

Dear Nikesh,

This is a known bug in Windows 10, where certain computers experience battery drain. There are simple solutions that you could try but if none of these resolutions fix your issue, you might have to go back to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft claims that they are working with Intel to fix the battery drain issue but until there is an update on that, you might not find a solution to your problems. The first thing to do would be to turn off Cortana but since you’ve already done that, move on to trying to disable all functions that track your location. Location tracking is a process that’ll constantly be running in the background and having this process take up most of your system’s resources could also be a culprit to your battery drain issues. See if you’re up to date with all of your drivers, even if all of your drivers were up-to-date on Windows 8, new drivers should have come for Windows 10. Make sure you install the Management Engine for your Intel CPU and also make sure that all of your INF drivers are updated. Go into Device Manager and see if you have any devices that haven’t been recognised by the operating system, if there are, try to find a fix for those problematic issues by trying to find them on Google. If this doesn’t work, your computer is suffering from the Windows 10 battery drain bug and you might have to wait until Microsoft and Intel come up with a solution to the problem before actually being able to use Windows 10 well. But for now, try to constantly run your computer on Battery Saver mode, even when it’s fully charged, so that Windows tries to use as little battery as possible while running. 

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