Sorry for the long winded reply. I wanted to include as much info as I could for anyone that finds themselves in a similar situation and searches for help on it.
After removing AVG traces, repair your installation:
Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove programs > avast! antivirus > Remove. Then choose Repair function in the popup window (Repair).
If this does not help, uninstall / boot / install / boot again.
Thank you for offering this fix! And thank you to everyone that responded to my thread!I tried repairing but the same problem persisted. I also only had 4 providers running, not 6 (or 7) so I decided to uninstall and reinstall, booting in between of course. This time I didn't go with a custom configuration as well. I did the standard one that installs the outlook email protection, even though I don't use Outlook, or Outlook EXPRESS for that matter. Anyway, that seemed to do the trick. I didn't have the slow boot I had on my initial install so this time I felt no need to edit the avast4.ini file to put in the delay. I also now have 6 providers running instead of 4.
And the WSC warning is now gone. THANK YOU!
I seem to have a nagging issue opening Windows Explorer (windows key + E). When I do that, explorer seems to lock up for about a minute, but then the problem ends and windows explorer opens. The problem persists on subsequent attempts to open additional instances of Windows Explorer. I'm not sure if it is related to avast, but on my first install when I edited the avast4.ini file and added that line that delays loading
AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120 I was able to open a windows explorer instance immediately. I'll work the issue and post what I find in this thread.
Could it be related to the rootkit detection feature? I also deactivated that on my previous install. Sorry I forgot to mention that. I left that option alone on this install. Anyway, I DO have one rootkit via Alcohol 120%. They deny using one, but a couple of days of exhaustive research and experimentation showed that the program actually does use one albeit not nefariously. I think it has something to do with DRM and mounted images actually working as a mounted resource. I'm a huge fan of making an image of my expensive software and then wrapping it up for safe keeping. Creative Labs driver discs for my older sound card hardware and the nightmare of finding an online replacement of the past taught me that lesson.
ANYWAY
Not that it matters now, but someone else might encounter this problem and/or this thread, so to be complete...
OS: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3, fully updated up to the date of this thread.
EMAIL: Mozilla Thunderbird version 2.0.0.23 (20090812)
BROWSER: Mozilla Firefox/3.5.5 GTB5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) with NoScript, AdBlock Plus, Firebug, Greasemonkey, FirePHP, and other addons
OTHER: - Apache Server 2.2.14 (32 bit)
- MySQL 5.1.41-community
- NetBeans IDE 6.8 (Build 200912041610)
- Java: 1.6.0_17; Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM 14.3-b01
- Ruby 1.8.6 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 287) [i386-mswin32]
- Rake, version 0.8.7
- SQL Server Express 2008 - Not sure the version, but it is updated.