just wanted to chip in my 2cents worth. I haven't updated my siggy but I'm running on a gateway LT series netbook from verizon. Windows SP3, IE 8, avast! (can't get to the version as i'm currently running in safe mode) and a non current version of MBAM (which i need to update). Reason i'm running in safemode is because in normal my mouse and keyboard are no longer functionable. Last night approx 10pm CST my avast! alert popped up stating that an update for the program was available and to click to update. So i did. Ran the update and got the request to restart. I clicked no, finished my browsing and shut the PC down for the evening. Hubby turned the netbook on this morning, goes through all the start up procedures and opens to a blank desktop screen. no icons, no start bar/menu. we powered down the netbook, i restarted in safemode, which came up fine, and backed up pics as we recently had a hard drive failure. Restarted the pc in normal, icons and everything come up as normal. got clicked on IE8 to bring it up and nothing happens, just the icon was selected. Mouse wasn't functioning and find out keyboard is not either. powered down again, rebooted in safemode, did a system restore to 1/5/11, returned to normal mode. same issue. no keyboard or mouse function. rebooted to safe mode and here i am. I'm noticing though that in safemode my avast! is in a disabled status, and that once the pc is turned on, until opens and shows in the system tray, my mouse and keyboard work, once avast is running in the background it stops. So my next step is to disable avast! on startup and see if that helps. I'll be back in a bit to update.