I know this is an old topic, but this helped me fix my problem, so I thought Id post for the record. I also have NT4 and was getting that same message and no resident protection. Turned out I had just installed a video driver by Trident, then a sound driver, but it didnt show up till the sound driver was installed. Turning off the sound driver didnt help, so I turned it back on. Then I turned off the service called triserv.exe and avast worked. Having it off makes no difference in my display, so I just leave it off (see below).
I tried the startup delay program, and it installed but then gave errors when I fired it up. The I uninstalled it, and it screwed up my smartmedia card reader software so I had to reinstall that. Going to the website, I see it is not for NT4.