Bob,
I have not used Avast in a dial up situation, nor have I used MSN so I'm hoping someone who uses MSN on dial up will step in and add their advice.
First though, can you right click on the "a" ball, click on Program Settings, click on Update (Connections), then tick "I only Connect to the internet using a dial up modem".
Can you advise whether your automatic updates are working, or if you have Update (Basic) set to manual, whether you can get the iAVS update by right clicking on the "a" ball, then "Updating" then "iAVS Update"
How do you get your emails, via MSN as web mail, via Outlook Express, or via Microsoft Outlook?
The fact that you are posting to this forum indicates you do have some internet access, but your first post suggests that might be with Avast turned off . Can you clarify what the situation is now your Firewall is set to allow the necessary Avast items. Are you able to access the internet via Internet Explorer with Avast On Access protection running.
If not, can you try just disabling the Webshield for the time being - left click on the "a" ball, click on the "Details" button at the bottom of the box, scroll the icons in the left column until you see the Webshield icon, click on it, then click on the terminate button. Answer Yes to the "Persist the changes" message. Can you advise whether you can now access the internet with the other shields running.
Incidentally, if you don't use Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, you can terminate the Outlook/Exchange shield (this is only used for Outlook, not Outlook Express), also if you don't use P2P you can Terminate that shield too - You can restart these if your situation changes in the future.
OK - back to you