Thank you all for your wonderful help, I truly appreciate it, but it appears the problem has been solved, even though I have no clue why. I started Avast the other day as I usually do and it looked different, and then, lo and behold, the virus vault worked!
And not only that, but ashserve.exe is always up and running now! I'm very happy, and I'm not sure why this happened since I hadn't changed anything in a few days, but I'll take it as it comes! Thanks again!!
