I apologize if this has been answered before. I found some other threads on this topic, but none that answered my questions.
First, is it possible to shut down avast! once it is running? (I mean, close the program completely, not just disable scanning? I want to completely exit out of the program. I'm not interested in arguments about whether or not I should want to do this, I just want to know how.) If it's possible, how do I do it, and if not, why not? I've tried ending the ashDisp.exe process in the task manager, but it says "Access denied."
Second, how do I prevent avast! from running at startup? I can't find a way to do this from within the program, and Vista's Software Explorer won't let me, so I removed it from my startup programs in msconfig, but when I rebooted, it was still there!
Any answers you can give would be appreciated. I'll uninstall the program if that's what I have to do to get it to stop running, but I hope there's a better way.