Well done on the google search, but you could have used the forum search for dbsCreateObject, the feature is no longer in the Avast External Control because it is now incorporated in the avast GUI. However, AEC is still a very useful utility.
dbscreateobject error
First check out this avast! FAQ answer
http://www.avast.com/eng/other_questions.html#idt_1406. For avast! Pro users it is best to update the ODBC Drivers, Home users can switch to XML storage.
Right click the avast! icon and select Program Settings, then Troubleshooting and tick the Use XML storage instead of ODBC.
You can also manually edit the avast4.ini file (using a text editor, if because of the error you can't get into the interface) and change database=odbc to database=xml, this is in the [Common] section.