Hi,
-have you tried installing Avast in SafeMode (press F8 when Booting) ?
and of course all this has to be done under admin.login.
EVen better would be the "real" Administrator, which has a bit more power than just user-with admin-rights under XP and 2k, and sometimes works wonders in problem cases..
"Administrator" might be only accessible in XP Home for the first time when booting in safeMode.. after that it should also be accessible in normal boot
-Xp SP1: SP1 and a not so recent Win-kernel-Update can cause serious system-wide performance problems on some XP systems; especially with (resident) AV-Scanners. search teh MS-knowledge base
-you don't have a second resident scanner installed/active ?
what is in your autostart & other startup-locations (especially registry RUN-entries ) ?
-have you deleted the avast-folder ? reboot ? a regclean might help, too
emptied TIF=IE-Cache & Temp-folder before installing ?
try installing avast from a new, empty folder into a new empty folder that is different from the old avast-program folder.
DON'T use download manager for getting the avast-install-file
Advanced (stolen from Mav1976 & somehow translated :-) ):
- System -> Services: Is "avast AntiVirus Service" & "avast! iAVS4 Control Service"set to automatic ?
start service !! -> What happens ?
If the Guard still doesn't start: check in the Devicemanager, if avast-drivers are functional and loaded.
- > enable options to show non-pnp-devices, show properties of driver: General -> Use device (activate)- #driver# status: "started/enabled" & start type "on Demand" (?? or automatic ??)If driver is deactivated, please start it!
you can also deinstall avast drivers there (reboot afterwards) before reinstalling avast. But be careful there if you don't know what you're deleting. !!!
reboot!!