I hate to say it, but after reading all the problems above, and with the problems I'm having, I am soooo regretting having removed version 4.8 and updating to 5.
On the current status page, it says my computer is unprotected and when I click the button that says 'Fix Now', nothing happens. Just below that it shows the following message:
'The avast! antivirus program has been stopped, or is an inconsistent state. Please re-start the program to resume protecting your system.'
To the right of that message is a small yellow bullet icon with 'Start program' button. I click that, nothing happens. I closed the processes in the process library to shut Avast down, then restarted it, and it still shows the same messages. I uninstalled the program, restarted my computer, re-downloaded the program from the site. When I went to run the install it said the program detected an issue that requires me to reboot my computer before I could run the installation, and if I continue to run the installation it could result in problems. So I canceled out of the re-install, rebooted my computer, then ran the installation. At the end of the installation it wanted me to reboot again, so I did, and when I restarted, the program still showed the above messages. Nothing was fixed in the re-installation of the program.
Up until now I have never had a problem with Avast, and in fact, I absolutely love it. It was, in my opinion, the best antivirus program available, until now. If I can get my version 4.8 back again, I will continue to run the program, but seriously, something needs to be done with this new version, because it just isn't working. I honestly do not wish to have to revert to AVG or some other anti-virus program, so please, please do something to fix this new version so that it actually works!
Seeing as I can't seem to put in a signature on this site as I cannot find the option to do so, I'll post this info here:
System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 3. Manufactured and supported by: eMachines Inc. eMachines.Sysem AMD Athlon (tm) Processor 2650e 1.61 GHz, 1.75 GB of RAM Physical Address Extension Avast! Free Version 5.0.545