The Acer Empowerment program (v. 2.5.4301) on my Acer 5920-zd1 laptop (Vista SP1)appears to be corrupted by an Avast update, either virus def. or program,that was issued between 28-12-10 and 1-1-11. When my laptop boots up and Avast is running a "WMIServi application stopped" message appears and Empowerment will not load. When I restore back to 28-12-10 it corrects itself but Avast goes unstable (no end points available). When I re-update Avast the problem re-occurs. No other programs have been downloaded since 28-12-10. Is this a conflict with Avast or some "New Year" virus I have picked up? I am by no means a computer expert and this conclusion was reached by a process of elimination since I did not think it could be an anti-virus program conflict.