Hi Bob,
Perhaps broken isn't quite right because I don't know whether the Avast programmers intended to take up so much system restore space; if indeed this was the intention, then the feature isn't broken but rather working as designed but designed poorly. In my case, 25% of my C: drive is approximately 60GB. Including the 2.5GB i normally devote to system restore, Avast is taking up almost twice as much space as everything else on my C: drive: the operating system itself plus numerous applications. To me, and I've been in computer support environment for well over two decades, it's ludicrous for Avast to require this much space; arguably, there's no logical reason for it. One could take my entire Win7 installation minus my own apps and run it in a virtual machine in far less space. From a customer standpoint, no program should require 60 GB. Another serious problem this creates is that how does one back up their C: drive? My C: drive is typically in the 38GB usage range' so now I have to back up an additional 60GB? True, I can just delete all the restore points but then I lose actual valid restore points. As has been stated previously, this effectively negates the entire point of system restore.
What I also find a bit disturbing is that I couldn't find anything in Avast's documentation or release notes that states this new feature requires 25% of one's primary drive. After a couple of days of resetting my system restore size and running multiple virus scans, Google led me here. If Avast is working as intended, the system requirements should have stated the drive space needed. Either way, a 25% space requirement is well beyond any reasonable expectation of what an antivirus program should need. I do appreciate the technology that's being put forth to fight viruses, just don't take away such a huge chunk of my drive to do it.
