After updating to Avast 8 free yesterday, the program has stopped running today. The tray icon first notified me of this by indicating that the system shields were not running. When I attempt to restart them, I received the error message "Unable to start the "File" System Shield! (or any other shield) Shield unreachable. I then tried to going through Windows 8 "Programs & Features" to activate the "Uninstall/repair" feature, as I found as a general solution on this forum. When I attempt this I get the error: Error reading product data from "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast 5\setup\part-setup_abp-ffffffff.vpx" Setup cannot continue.
Under the maintenance heading of the user interface, under "Update engine and virus definitions" it is indicated that;
Current version: unknown;
Release date: unknown;
Steaming updates: enabled;
Connection: connection not established;
Latest update received: --- ,
and finally at the bottom under "Update program: Current version: 8.01483
I have attempted to restore my computer to a previous date (prior to the update) with no success on 3 attempts (I get the error message indicating "the restore was unsuccessful due to probable action of an installed antivirus program" (Avast is the only one installed other than Windows defender, which was deactivated also but working fine now) . As it stands now, I am unable to activate the program (the activation code seems to have been lost somehow?), enable the shields, repair the program, remove the program, re-install the program or delete the program files manually and re-install the program. Needless to say I am in need of some assistance. If I can not get the program running, I intend to boot the system from a bootable windows 8 repair drive, go to a c prompt and remove all the Avast files manually. I am hesitant to re-install the program again as I don't want to have to go through this procedure a second time as it has taken 4 hours so far. Any thoughts?