Well!
After about 20 restarts and removals/uninstalls/cleans of Avast I still get this issue.
Let me explain what I've done and what I get after all the work :
I've installed Avast at an early point in time. (Probably 2010 or earlier) and it's worked flawlessly up until the recent 2014 update.
I run Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Edition and run the 2013 version of Avast perfectly fine. As soon as I use the program to update, the next boot instantly gets me to a "Avast Has Encountered A Problem and needs to close" window. No details on what the issue is, no help - nothing.
So naturally after this I used ALL the tools to remove it (both types) and found the newest 2014.9.0.2011 on here and installed that.
It worked fine !!!! --- Up until I restarted my machine. Then I was back to the lovely "Avast Has Encountered A Problem and needs to close" window.
I haven't the slightest idea as to why this is happening and it's fairly annoying. I've tried googling it to find solution threads / forums / sites but avast (pardon the pun), I've found nothing that helps. ANY help would be greatly appreciated.
And YES, I've tried builds 2014.9.0.2010 -09, 08 and 07.
Edit:
Not sure if this helps but I'd also like to note that both the firewall and antivirus services are Running on start up. I am also able to find that the self protection module is up, but that might be irrelevant.