There are known troubles with old versions of avast! being updated to 4.1.289. Try a clean reinstall of avast!
1. Desinstall from Control Panel (Add/Remove Programs)
2. Boot
3. Download and use
avast 4.0 Uninstall.
4. Boot
5. Install the 4.1.289 version
Anyway, I'm not so sure your licence key was wrongly wrote in the Registration Window. Try copy & paste method to fill the number (from the email to the Registration Window).
You know that the registration form can be found
here, if you need to do it again.
I had troubles with 'Repair' function of avast! but I'm not sure which causes it, so I cannot help you more than this.
If the blue a-icon near my computer clock and the resident protection providers does not appear, it seems avast! is not well installed in your computer.
Could you post what applications (related to avast!) are in your startup itens?
ashDisp.exe is just the tray icon. If you don't like it, you can kill it... But this process is due to all UI of the resident modules, including the virus alerts, updating windows etc...
Do you see:
ashServ.exe and
aswUpdSv.exe in the system services (formely Services applet of the Administrative Tools in Control Panel).
ashMaiSv.exe is the mail protection proxy. It's able to work as a service as well, but this is not the case by default. This process is only needed if you use the mail (SMTP/POP3/IMAP4) proxy. Whether it auto-starts with the OS or not is determined by a check box in the Mail Protection Wizard.