Thanks but I did all of that in response to the first post to no avail, including disabling everything not essential
I had been running the McAfee virus program and it is fairly demanding of a computer and had no problems, except for the huge weekly update files, which is why I gave it away. I had uninstalled it and cleaned the registry of all the rubbish left behind.
As I have said in earlier posts the program is working fine. It is just that I cannot get beyond the splash screen to set up a system scan. I cannot even get back into it via the system tray icons to achieve this. I found the fix in the offline FAQ from the Help page for just the problem I am having (but it made no difference) by right clicking on the VRDB icon and slecting "what is avast VRDB " and this took me into the program help files.
The error occures when I click on the avast desktop icon. The splash screen opens and the memory check is done. It then says it is continuing to load the program. The next thing is the error screen called "unknown Error" which contains the informaton that "Application cannot load skin. Function useGetSkin failed"
This error is described in the offline FAQ and I carried out the fix recommended but, although the dll was registered, the error continues to appear. If I right click on the avast icon in the system tyray I get a menu but, if I select "start avast Antivirus" I go down the same track as I described above and the erro appears.
I cannot do without a system scan for much longer so will have to try another program if I cannot get avast working.
Appreciate your help.
I am new to the program and assume that a screen will come up after the splash screen if you open it from the desktop icon to allow you to configure it and initiate a system screen
The thing that puzzles me is that avast support will not resond to my emails for assistance.