Avast 5.0 pro issues not in 4.8

[YoKenny]

@ me2010

CPU AMD Athlon XP 1.53ghz is really slow today.

I had a 2.4GHZ P4 system with 512MB RAM that I sold to a friend and he is quite happy with it using avast! V5 Free and I am sure that the system that it replaced that ran Win98SE quite well had a CPU that was about then same specifications as the AMD you have.

[Hermite15]

that is the best answer you could come up with?  that is a joke.  You actually think that this program requires another 512megs of memory to run better?  If that is the sloppy programming for the future of avast then I think I'll have to give up on them.

Now for everyone else, what is causing this in 5.0 pro? And why?

you're right. I've been running XP during years with 512MB of RAM (upgraded to 1GB for BF2, and not for Avast  ), it doesn't need more. At least the OS + a few apps don't, and neither avast 4 nor avast 5 need you to add more RAM. It's better for gaming and/or intensive graphics apps but OK, that's not your issue. There's something conflicting and explorer has issues to launch anything.
If it also takes time when you right click "My Computer" before the window with the drives shows up, it's because one of your installed programs with something that goes into the context menu (right click) conflicts with something else, and in your case it could well be the "Scan..." sub-item from Avast5. This sort of problem can even lead to crashes of Explorer. I've seen it happen. Solved it by removing the context menu item related program.
 So you have the choice between troubleshooting this and remove, if you find it, the app that conflicts with Avast there, or remove Avast 5 and go back to 4.8. Use MS config to deactivate start-up apps one by one and reboot until you find the culprit... I know, that's time consuming, but that's the only way.

edit: what other security software are you using if any?

[me2010]

that is the best answer you could come up with?  that is a joke.  You actually think that this program requires another 512megs of memory to run better?  If that is the sloppy programming for the future of avast then I think I'll have to give up on them.

Now for everyone else, what is causing this in 5.0 pro? And why?

you're right. I've been running XP during years with 512MB of RAM (upgraded to 1GB for BF2, and not for Avast  ), it doesn't need more. At least the OS + a few apps don't, and neither avast 4 nor avast 5 need you to add more RAM. It's better for gaming and/or intensive graphics apps but OK, that's not your issue. There's something conflicting and explorer has issues to launch anything.
If it also takes time when you right click "My Computer" before the window with the drives shows up, it's because one of your installed programs with something that goes into the context menu (right click) conflicts with something else, and in your case it could well be the "Scan..." sub-item from Avast5. This sort of problem can even lead to crashes of Explorer. I've seen it happen. Solved it by removing the context menu item related program.
 So you have the choice between troubleshooting this and remove, if you find it, the app that conflicts with Avast there, or remove Avast 5 and go back to 4.8. Use MS config to deactivate start-up apps one by one and reboot until you find the culprit... I know, that's time consuming, but that's the only way.

edit: what other security software are you using if any?

I did try the right click for the context menu, appears as soon as I right click.  I did deactivate the four files, one at at time, in the startup folder and nothing changed with the delay.  I do appreciate the help! 

the only other security software is the firewall, and have disabled that but still no improvement. *sigh*  We will find it eventually.