The first problem is most of those helping on the forums are avast users just like you and most are unlikely to still be running windows 7, though there are a few. So for the most part, they may not have experienced any problems after the restart.
The second problem, having done the update but have yet to do a restart, changes will have already been made, that is the reason a restart is required to incorporate them. This is typically for system/low level processes that need to run very early on in the system start.
As I mentioned, I don't know if there is a way of reversing that update short of what I mentioned in my earlier post. If your last update was from around Nov 2021, that is a huge jump from 21.11.xxxx to 22.12.xxxx.
Essentially if you do a program update from within the Avast User Interface, you should always get the latest program update.
What I don't know if in that program update would it recognise your having Win7 and would there be any restrictions on what the highest Avast Version you would get. A long time ago when winXP support was dropped the highest update it could get was 18.8.xxxx