Avcast Free may have messed up system restore

[rungel]

I'm trying to help a friend over the internet with her computer. I don't have a actual copy on any of my computers with Avcast so please bear with me on this.

Avcast caught a virus which was in the temp folder. A Pop up came up with that rouge program Antivirus 2009 program. Anyway Avcast caught it. Avcast offers a reboot scan which i had her do and told her to check off ignore system files. Now her System restore will not work. I had her turn it off then turn back on but it didn't start. And will not start. I don't know for sure if Avcast had anything to do with this.

But would like to know how to get to the log file and backups .. are they all in the Avcast folder?

[ADS]

I may have a similar problem.  I have xp pro and installed sp3 a week ago.  Everything was working fine except avast.  So yesterday I uninstalled avast and reinstalled it.  Avast installed fine(resident protect ran unlike before) however I ended up with the following problems:
1. previous system restore points disappeared
2. devise manager is blank (permission/security are fine)
3. no network connection (can't even edit network settings due to no icon but afd.sys tcpip.sys and netbt.sys files are all still present)
4. a very large number of services all got disabled (boots fine goes into xp fine and most things function fine (explorer, word, excel, calc, etc.) except firewall will give error after a few hours stating something about can't write something or not enough system resources and asks for restart of service)
5. system properties no longer displays my cpu info(pentium 4, 3GHz) it only displays os version (xp sp3), who it is registered to, and my ram info

uninstalling avast does not restore my pc
none of the above problems goes away in safemode or safemode with networking
booting to previous working condition does not help (same as current)

other things you may wish to know but probably not important:
avast installation went smooth, did boot scan, gave one false positive on a log generator installer(I just downloaded it but never installed due the system never having virus or malware issues to date, or at least none that my installed softwares could find other than cookies)

System History
ran various versions of symentec av but decided each one caused more problems than any prevented so did away with it using the norton removal tool before switching to avast.  Avast ran fine on the machine fore over 6 months until the sp3 update.  Sp3 update did not go smoothly, failed when trying to install by auto update, but when I downloaded manually and tried to install it a second time it worked fine. 

If anyone has technical/computer knowledge/experience and is willing to help, it would be very much appreciated.  As I have no clue what went wrong, how to fix it and searching google has been relatively unproductive due to my own lack of knowledge about computers. 

[Lisandro]

ADS, it's not being easy to troubleshoot... I mean, you've got SP3 installed, you've used Norton uninstall tool... avast should mess nothing on System Restore and even less disable any other service... Do you remember the name of the file moved to Chest? The virus found?

[ADS]

Tech: no file was moved or deleted, it was an installable that avast could not "fix" so I chose to just ignore it, I had the file for a long time and was used on other machines so I know it is a false positive, just a potential security risk. 
norton isn't the problem since I have not had it on the system for about a year
don't think it is sp3 since I had internet for a week after installing sp3
don't think it is avast since I've had avast installed for over half a year without problems

I do think there is a high possibility of sp3 not being compatible with avast on this machine resulting in some sort of security glitch while reinstalling avast which resulted in system restore points disappearing without being prompted and no network access what so ever. 
I'm not blaming avast since I've been quite happy with it compared to norton and other commercial AVs
blaming sp3 won't help though I've been warned by a few IT guys to not install sp3 if the machine works fine on sp2(got warning after the fact). 

I would like help/suggestions on what to do to restore the machine since my knowledge of computers is very limited. 
So far I've been advised to try:
uninstalling sp3
try xp cd to repair windows
reformat the drive

If someone here also recommends uninstalling sp3 I'll go ahead and do that.  (only reason I haven't is because I'm afraid to make the problem worse, and it seems from this forum that many people have no problems running sp3 with avast and I already uninstalled avast)
I doubt xp cd will help since the os didn't even detect a problem(last know good config did not work)
reformatting the hard drive is a possibility but I would have to figure out how to back everything up (have not checked to make sure but other people with similar problems say usb and cd drive don't work, I tend to believe them since all those services are disabled, though I don't know why a usb extenal hard drive would not work when usb mouse and keyboard are fine)

rungel: logs should be txt files in C:program files/Alwil Software/avast4/data/ report/ for logs and moved/ for missing files.  I had one report from boot scan and another from manual scan

[rungel]

I will pass on the info where the logs are.. She got a friend to help so i'm off the hook for this. pretty hard to fix something like this from this distance.. This seemed like a good site in my travels http://bertk.mvps.org/html/searchv.html

[Lisandro]

I've been warned by a few IT guys to not install sp3 if the machine works fine on sp2(got warning after the fact). 

Hmmm... SP3 works fine...

So far I've been advised to try:
uninstalling sp3
try xp cd to repair windows
reformat the drive

Well, can you list 1. 2. 3. ... your problems, shortly? It will help me to help you.

[ADS]

finally found the problem and solution:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/07/12/empty-device-manager-and-no-network-connections-after-installing-windows-xp-sp3-with-symantec-symprotect-on/
(note: I did not have norton at the time and did use the norton removal tool about a year ago to no avail)

just for the curious,
uninstalling sp3 or/and avast does not help just the windows hotfix in the link will fix it

as for the missing restore points: installing sp3 deletes sp2 restore points and uninstalling sp3 deletes sp3 restore points :/

if you already tried uninstalling sp3 the above hotfix may not work but you can temporarily renable network connection by manually starting the server and workstation services(maybe others like TCP/IP and ones with network in the name) which will allow you to back up to another machine since you can't write to cds or see external drives.  (note: not permanent solution since your network icon will still be missing)
then go into safe mode
run regedit
search manually for corrupt keys and delete them one by one, search string: $%&'()*+
reboot

Hmmm... SP3 works fine...

see these sites and many others:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=12&SiteID=17&PageID=12&PostID=4186615
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Connection_Sharing
"Windows XP SP3 Bug

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) introduces a bug in ICS that requires restarting the ICS Windows service after several events, including disconnecting the network cable from the ICS machine.

    * In Microsoft support article KB951446
       
      , the process of restarting the ICS service is explained, but there is no mention of a plan to fix this bug in the future[1].
    * In later Microsoft support article KB951830
       
      , more details and a hotfix (Update for Windows XP (KB951830)
       
      ) are given.[2][3] This hotfix is not currently being distributed via Windows Update, and so it must be manually installed."

I'm guessing my problem arose not because of norton but because I had avast on when windows automatic update tried to install sp3