Now though since avast updates lately caused me reboots
Operating system restart needed by avast message could be solved, in some systems, by deleting the file <avast>\setup\reboot.txt
If deleting reboot.txt doesn't stop the requests for reboot check this:
Check this registry entry (right after computer restart):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager, if it contains "PendingFileRenameOperations".
Check its contents and if there's only "reboot.txt" from avast4\setup folder, delete PendingFileRenameOperations, don't delete any other key.
Back-up (export) the registry key before you edit/delete, just in case.
Not sure what the problem with your shutdown might be (does this happen every time?), there could be something running that isn't ending correctly. Hopefully something may be in the windows event logs.
Igor said:
The virus database updates normally don't require computer restart. However, in very special cases, a virus database update might actually include a program update as well (in which case, the computer restart would indeed be required). I believe it was your case.
I should probably explain what "in very special cases mean". Some time ago, we have found some limits (you can call it "bugs") in avast! code which would make avast! stop working when the number of records in virus database reaches specific number (well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but it doesn't really matter now). We fixed the problems, of course, and included the fix in one of the program updates.
Right now, we are very close to this "limit" (regarding the number of viruses). Even though the fixed version of the program has been available for quite some time now, however, there are still quite a lot of users who use older versions; so, we can either stop adding new viruses (which wouldn't be very wise), or somehow make the users of old avast! versions - that are still out there - to update to the fixed one. So, that's what happening right now... some of the old versions were updated during an ordinary virus database update.
Hope this explains it.