Could you please try to get some more information about the problem?
- would the problem go away if you disable the avast resident protection completely? If yes, could you try to disable only the particular resident providers to find the one causing the problem? If you find this provider (could be the Standard Shield) - can you try to disable some of its options (in case of the Standard Shield, e.g. "scanning files on open", scanning OLE documents, ...) and check if the problem persists?
- if the problem occurs whenever avast is installed, is it still present when you kill avast process, stop avast service (NT/2k/XP), maybe even remove it from the "Startup" chain and reboot?
- does the problem disappear after avast is uninstalled?
- what are the exact problems with the printer - the printer doesn't print anything, or some kind of garbage, or seems not to be installed at all... ? Is it possible to enter the Printer configuration? Is there any useful information there (error message when printing a test page, ...)?
- ... whatever you find useful/interesting.
bgolden: what is your OS - also WinXP?