CUSTOMER SERVICE MEMO CSTP1501for 2015 Edition of HowardSoft's Tax Preparer®How to ensure proper installation and on-line updating of Tax PreparerBackground. Starting with the 2015 Edition of Tax Preparer, installation and updating are performed by a powerful Windows installation program with file types not found in prior editions of Tax Preparer. As a result, you may encounter problems never seen with prior editions. Most of these problems are caused by overly aggressive security measures on your computer, usually enforced by anti-virus or anti-malware software. One example is the popular Avast Anti-Virus software, which includes DeepScan and Hardened Mode options that provide especially aggressive protection. However, the problems can be averted with the proper management of these security products. Symptoms. Some symptoms are obvious when you first try to install Tax Preparer, but others are more subtle:
Best Practices for installation and on-line updating. The problems are generally caused by security products that protect you from running unauthorized program files or changing program files once installed. However, installation and updating requiring the execution of program files that are unknown to the security product, and updating further requires that all previously installed program files can be changed. It is therefore necessary to temporarily turn off aggressive security products while installation or updating are performed. You do not have to turn off protection while you are downloading one of our files from the web. However, before you run the downloaded file (whether for installing or updating) you must turn off protection for the duration of the execution of that program. Most security products allow you do to this conveniently. You do not have to turn off on-line protection (such as Mail Shield or Web Shield). You only have to turn off file protection. For example, in Avast's Settings for Active Protection, you can click the ON switch for File System Shield, and a pop-up menu gives you the choice of Stop for 10 minutes, Stop for 1 hour, Stop until restart of computer, or Stop permanently. (We recommend the first choice because installation is very fast.) Once installation is complete, you can turn your protection back on. However, be sure to read the next paragraph for steps to take before starting Tax Preparer. Best Practices for start-up. In order for Tax Preparer to start and run properly, it must be allowed to run various program files in its program folder, not just the initial HSPrnTax.exe program. For some functions, it must also be allowed to alter some of these program files. It is therefore important to let your security software know that these operations are normal and not a threat. The best way to do this with most security software is to add the Tax Preparer program folder to its list of exclusions (folders to omit from aggressive protection). For example, for Avast Anti-Virus click Settings, then General, then scroll down to Exclusions and click it to view your choices. Click the File paths tab, then click Add. You can either enter the path to the program folder or click the browse button and navigate to it (then click it). For default installations the proper entry is:
Avast will add an asterisk to the end of the path to indicate that all files in the folder are excluded. Once you are done, be sure to click OK to approve the addition. How to correct prior installations. If you experienced ANY of the symptoms described above, we recommend that you reinstall the latest on-line update using the above Best Practices for installing and on-line updating, because of the possibility that some files may not have been installed due to aggressive security protection. Then, once the update is installed anew, perform the steps described in Best Practices for start-up before trying to use the newly reinstalled Tax Preparer.
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