I've been having troubles with getting Avast to work properly. The icon disappears from the taskbar, the shortcut on my desktop loses the little orange icon and becomes the generic blank window one. Attempts to open Avast to use the user interface don't work, and I get this "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." message every time.
I've tried the repair utility in the uninstall menu. I ran it twice yesterday.
I've tried uninstalling avast and reinstalling it (twice now. once yesterday and once today).
It seems to work alright until I shut the computer down, and then the program goes into hiding again. I can tell it's going to happen again because although the icon is in my taskbar and running right now, the icon in the shortcut on my desktop has changed to the empty window again.
I'm getting really frustrated about this. I called the support number today and all they told me was to uninstall and reinstall. Again. I have a paid up subscription through August 2016, but I'm frustrated enough that I'm considering abandoning it (jfc I paid money for this thing gdi) and finding something that won't give me grief every time I turn on my computer.
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on fixing this problem? I'm running a Dell Inspiron 5520 with Windows 7, and as far as I can tell, everything is up-to-date on it.