The machine came with Norton Internet Suite preinstalled.
Left enough remnants that it still appeared in Windows Protection Center under the Malware Protection section. Use of the Norton Removal Tool and CClean (both invoked via "Run as Administrator") finally removed all the crumbs and left me with a clean system.
I've did the same on Vista Business and it worked. Three days ago...
After Norton removal I ran the Avast Setup. The setup window showed that it was installing VPC, I got a message box saying "Installation Failed".
Can you rephrase? What is VPC?
At this point the Avast spinning "A" icon and the VRDB "I" icon were in my system tray. It looked like everything was okay but I didn't trust it because of the earlier failures. I went to add/remove programs and selected Avast's repair option.
You've followed the correct way to repair...
The Avast spinning "A" icon and the VRDB "I" icon are in my system tray.
The following processes are running
ashDisp.exe
ashMaiSv.exe
ashServ.exe
ashWebSv.exe
Everything seems okay but I don't trust it.
To see if avast! is scanning emails, check one of these points:
1) Is the avast icon (the special one of email scanning) be shown in the system tray?
2) Is your email header with the lines
X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS XXXXXX-X, XX/XX/2007), Inbound message and
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean? (Right click the message, choose Properties and Details)
3) Are clean notes added at the bottom of the email? (Internet Mail provider settings)
You can test the security of your email system here: http://www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest/To see the Standard Shield and other protection:
1) Is the 'a' blue icon swirling?
2) Right click the icon once and see what are the 'last scanned files'...
3) Use eicar virus test.