I've finally found time to play around a little more with my Error 40000 problem.
First, some perhaps pertainent information that I neglected to mention the first time around:
I get the Error 42000 when I attempt to run the scan from an account with Admin authority.
Now for the testing results:
1. I switched to an non-Admin (Limited) account and double clicked the Avast icon on the Desktop. The scans (both memory and full HD) ran to completion witout the Error 42000.
Switched back to the Admin account and tried the following:
2. Full scan (by clicking on the Avast! desktop icon) - got Error 42000.
I ran the following tests by changing to the Avast4 directory and double clicking the individual programs (as Admin):
3. ashAvast.exe - gor Error 42000
4. ashSimp2.exe - scan ran without error
5. ashSimpl.exe - scan ran without error (GUIwise, ashSimpl.exe looks like ashAvast.exe but without the memory test. The difference seems to be that ashSimpl.exe runs and ashAvast.exe gets the Error 40000 immediately for both the memory and HD scans.)
So, the problem seems to be with the Admin account and with ashAvast.exe. This brings up a couple of questiions:
1. Am I the only person in the world having this problem?
2. If not, do the developers intend to address this problem?
3. If I run the scans in a Limited account and there is a virus detected, will I be able to take the necessary actions to quarantine the virus the same as if I gad been running as Admin?
Sorry for the length of this post.