Groveldog,
Techie101 already answered the hard questions, so let me take a stab at the second question:
It doesn't appear so. I suspect it would be possible to do something like what you suggest, but not very practical in implementation terms.
Unless I miss my guess, Avast! simply starts at one end of the drive, and starts cranking away, scanning files that meet its' criteria as it encounters them. To do what you suggest, one would have to know how many files met the criteria in advance, then compare that count to the scan count, and thus display a percentage of what had been accomplished.
So, this would require:
1 Pass to count the files and then another pass to run the scan.
In terms of processor time, this would be insignificant, but you'd then have to address how to handle changes in content during scan, and adjusting (or restarting) your scan accordingly...
Or so I surmise. I could be completely off base here though, it just seems that that is the way the scanner works....
Oh, and don't worry about being a NortonAV ex user. I just switched yesterday myself. And while some things about Norton were superior (multiple account support), I find that the AVAST! Developers are well on their way to fixing that lack! (And as is AVAST! can support multiple POP accounts, just not multiple SMTP accounts...I can live with that!)
Also, I feel FREE of paying the tithe to Norton for "upgrades". Now if I could just solve for Norton WinDoctor, I'd be a happy camper! <grin>
Scott...