Major problems with Avast 4.8-Pls Help

[emaoke]

I recently got a laptop with Norton Antivirus preinstalled. The laptop runs on Windows Vista home. I was able to set up outlook as a client for both my gmail and aol email accounts. Everything was working fine. But then I decided to try Avast 4.8 on recommendation of a friend so I uninstalled Norton and installed Avast 4.8 and I have not slept since then( I mean literally!)!!!

I can't access either mailbox from outlook anymore. it keeps saying a connection to the server could not be established. Tried setting Windows mail as a client for my gmail, there it's saying the imap command could not be sent to the server because of a non network error. I couldn't access the internet through the dial up I use at home. Had to disenable web shield. It seems to allow limited connectivity now and last but not least, I can not update the Avast virus database either manually or automatically-keeps saying cannot connect to server.

Guys, do you have ANY solution to this??? Maybe I should just stick to that clusmy looking but safe good ol' Norton....

[1975maggie]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

If you didn't run the norton removal tool, you can get it from here

http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

The avast removal tool can be found here

http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html

Uninstall avast first, then run the avast removal tool

Run the norton tool and reinstall avast.

Reboot between each step.

[Tarq57]

1975maggie is correct.
Norton leaves all sorts of entries behind, and needs more thorough removal (usually) than can be accomplished via its uninstaller.

What was unsaid (but apologies in advance if its obvious) is that once you have downloaded the uninstall tools needed, you should be offline during the procedure, (restart as prompted) until your new AV is installed and ready to go, then re-connect to the web for updates.