1. I have tried all of the 8 steps suggested by Tech! Several times! You can see from my post I have!
2. And Dch48, I too thought that if it was a problem with Avast then every single user must have the same problem!..wrong...it is Avast but for what ever reason it isn't affecting every single user. I've been repairing computers long enough though to realise that there could be 1 in a million reasons for this but it is possible. The computer isn't mine, but one I built and look after, the windows firewall IS in default state and hasn't been TINKERED with! To suggest that only people who know what there doing are the ones having problems because they must have tinkered with their PC is ridiculous.
Once again if you read my post you will see that everything works just fine (with avast) prior to updating to the recent version, so it has to be a problem with avast that only occurs in certain circumstances.
The customer reported the problem to me and said everything was fine until an Avast update came down, the reported problem was a blank screen with mouse cursor after logon! Then the desktop eventually came back but with the problems I mentioned before. I have tried EVERYTHING possible on this PC without completely wiping it and re-installing everything. Every time and every stage of everything I've done as soon as THE LATEST Avast is removed everything works just fine. Or as I've discovered disabling the windows firewall also makes everything work fine. There is something wrong somewhere between avast and the firewall/network side of things. You only have to look on the forum to see how many people are having problems with these latest updates.
Even my own PC, Win7-64-bit, default firewall never messed with it was acting up around the time these new updates came out, on every re-boot I got the Avast box saying the update had completed click finish, I did but still got the box back on the next re-boot. Then there was another update (probably most recent version) and now that's stopped happening but on the first re-boot my PC stalled for ages after logon and acted very strange for a good while before it seemed to come right. I knew it was something to do with avast but as it came right and has been ever since I didn't bother about it. C'Mon Avast figure it out! I'm a long time user and recommend Avast to all my customers don't let me down!!