im running win xp sp2, IE8, and have been using Avast regularly 4.8 with no problems. Last night the Avast screen popped up to tell me my 4.8 would soon be worthless ("soon" meaning December) and I needed to upgrade. It was right in front of me, so I decided to install the free version and get that part over with.
Not good. It took an hour to 'upgrade' and then said I needed to reboot. Which I did. When the computer booted up my systray was gone. and none of my icons would work. I clicked on the Avast icon, and it said the program was not installed, "click here". which i did. nothing happened.
I booted up again, and this time came up in safe mode. Booted up again, my icons were there, useless, and still no systray. I managed to get into the add/remove section, and when I hit "remove" it began to 'install' itself. Took an hour. Then I got the message "not installed" again.
I could only turn off the machine by pushing the button on the tower.
I never recieved a registration key, and yes I checked my junk mail folder and everything. In order to make the computer run properly we had to use a backup to even access it. needless to say I am very disappointed and surprised.