I had some issues with the Fix - not complaining, but rather documenting to maybe help other folks and developers at AVAST:
1) the automatic update of the plugin (AsOutExt.dll) will not apply until the system is rebooted.
Not a big issue, but it would be helpful if Avast would prompt for a reboot.
2) My Outlook had automatically disabled the plugin and I had to manually load the (fixed) plugin in Outlook.
The solution to this is to regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\Avast.AsOutExt\LoadBehavior
and set the value to 3
3) While searching for solution for 2) I uninstalled Mail Shield component and re-installed again including reboot after.
After this Outlook plugin crashed again and it appeared that the AsOutExt.dll file size had changed to a different value
from the fixed version.
Is it possible that install Mail shield component pulls the original broken AsOutExt.dll ?
I was able to fix this with a repair from Control Panel\Programs and Features.
Anyway after a few hick-ups it's working for me now...