When performing a manual update, I occasionally get a completely black screen with only a cursor. The system never returns from this state, requiring a manual reboot (ctrl-alt-del does not bring up the options to get to task manager).
I'm using:
Fully updated Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2
Avast 5.0.507 (antivirus only, all real-time shields running)
Comodo 4.0.141842.828 (firewall with Defense+, no anti-virus, Windows Firewall off)
SuperAntiSpyware 4.35.1002
Latest versions of Flash, Java, etc.
HP Quick Launch Buttons & Accelerometer (hdd protection utility), and the related HP processes necessary to run them (but no others)
no other programs/services of note (sure, I have Synaptics touchpad driver, Bluetooth driver, etc., but nothing else automatically running that would not be considered part of a standard build)
Auto-update is off for all components (I update manually). Password protection is on.
This seems to happen when I have IE windows open with some processor-intensive Flash application running and I use the Avast icon in the system tray to request an update. Since that would normally result in an avast password dialog box, I'd guess that the problem is with the generation of the dialog. This does not always happen, though -- the dialog seems to work with IE windows open most of the time.
By the way, I'd like to advocate that Avast NOT use a password dialog paradigm that halts access to all other programs -- VERY ANNOYING. I very much appreciate the program, in general, but would wish that USER CONTROL be a paramount consideration in design and development, and I'm a bit concerned that the direction version 5 seems to have gone (graphically-oriented, etc.) has obfuscated, if not limited, this control.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help or who might work to correct this bug.