Thanks for the reply essexboy.
I probably came off a bit rude, so let me explain what I mean: I would really like to upgrade to 8.1 and Avast Free 2014, but it's not that I believe it is dysfunctional, but rather that all of these forum posts by others and saying how avast "bricked" their system gives me the incentive to wait for a just little bit more until both Windows 8.1 and Avast! 2014 have been around for a while, such that any anomalies would be corrected out.
As of this moment, a lot of people are saying W8.1 and A2014 works just fine, while others are saying that hell has been unleashed on to their machine, so it's almost a 50/50 risk. That doesn't go without saying that I will eventually install both the OS update and the AV update, but I'll probably not take any chances at the moment and keep using W8 and Avast 8, only because my machine is quite crucial for university work.
Thanks for the help; I'll probably install both in the near future, but like I said, at the current moment, with the major build being relatively new, there is just a lot of uncertainty of what is the best thing to do.
One last thing -- is it recommended that I fully remove avast! from my system prior to installing Windows 8.1? As in, should I fire up control panel and remove the anti-virus, then install 8.1, and then later on install A2014? I feel like that half of the problems might be from the fact that they're letting the OS override certain things without properly cleaning out their registries or system files.
Thanks again, and good luck!
-R
