Program Update hosed my PC !@!#!

[y2ken]

Did anyone else experience a problem with the newest program update?
I'm using Avast! Free Edition w/ Windows7 Home Premium 64bit. I just installed the latest program update from my current version of 5.0.677 to the newest version and upon rebooting found that my PC was HOSED! None of my installed programs would work! I was getting a variety of different error messages.
Luckily I back my entire installation every day with "Acronis True Image Home 2011" but of even THAT wouldn't work from within Windows so I had to use the Acronis Boot/Rescue Disk in order to get my system back.
Love Acronis, but I'm feeling no love for Avast! right now. 
 

[schmidthouse]

Did anyone else experience a problem with the newest program update?
I'm using Avast! Free Edition w/ Windows7 Home Premium 64bit. I just installed the latest program update from my current version of 5.0.677 to the newest version and upon rebooting found that my PC was HOSED! None of my installed programs would work! I was getting a variety of different error messages.
Luckily I back my entire installation every day with "Acronis True Image Home 2011" but of even THAT wouldn't work from within Windows so I had to use the Acronis Boot/Rescue Disk in order to get my system back.
Love Acronis, but I'm feeling no love for Avast! right now. 
 

Hello y2ken and welcome: Sorry to hear you are having problems with Avast program upgrade.
Have you tried a 'Repair' of Avast. Go to Control Panel, Add and Remove Programs...choose Avast then 'Change/Remove and then scroll to 'Repair'. Often  times that's all it takes to resolve the issue.
If that doesn't work then you may have to do a 'Clean Install'. 

[pdoreika]

It happened to me too.  My wife's laptop ran Avast free on Windows 7 home premium 64bit, and a couple days ago EVERYTHING stopped working.  No programs would startup, and I am unable to uninstall anything.  Fortunately it's only a couple months old and I have the restore DVD's.  It's fixed now, but, without knowing it was AVAST that caused the problem, I started up my desktop computer this morning.  I was greeted with a promp to update the AVAST program and did so.  Now my desktop, that's run great for over a year is hosed.  The same problems with it as the laptop had.  Unfortunately, I have no backup, and am struggling to find a way to back out the update.  Since even AVAST won't start, and won't uninstall, I am in a quandry.

I had recommended AVAST to a lot of friends in the past year or two.  Now I am trying to track them all down to warn them NOT to update the program.  I hope AVAST has some kind of a fix for this as I can't stand to loose my desktop computer.

[Nesivos]

Did anyone else experience a problem with the newest program update?
I'm using Avast! Free Edition w/ Windows7 Home Premium 64bit. I just installed the latest program update from my current version of 5.0.677 to the newest version and upon rebooting found that my PC was HOSED! None of my installed programs would work! I was getting a variety of different error messages.
Luckily I back my entire installation every day with "Acronis True Image Home 2011" but of even THAT wouldn't work from within Windows so I had to use the Acronis Boot/Rescue Disk in order to get my system back.
Love Acronis, but I'm feeling no love for Avast! right now.  
 

Sorry but this post reads like someone trolling for Acronis

JMHO

[brhokla]

I don't think so.  I've been an Avast fan for some time now, you can see my posts and my ratings here and on C/net of the product.  I have had no problems until the new update.  It jacked my computer all up but i was able to fix it.  I think many of the problems people are having is due to the Firewall they are running.  That appears to be what my issues where combined with the program update from inside Avast GUI.  Do a complete uninstall and clean Avast with the cleaning tool Avast provides then turn completely OFF your Firewall for the Avast install.  Make sure you did a clean reboot before the install also.  This fixed my problems and now it again runs like a champ! 

[Charyb-0]

y2ken, are you using Online Armor. If not, what firewall are you using? brokla's solution might be the answer.
See this post.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=69336.0
and
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=69385.0

[Nesivos]

I don't think so.  I've been an Avast fan for some time now, you can see my posts and my ratings here and on C/net of the product.  I have had no problems until the new update.  It jacked my computer all up but i was able to fix it.  I think many of the problems people are having is due to the Firewall they are running.  That appears to be what my issues where combined with the program update from inside Avast GUI.  Do a complete uninstall and clean Avast with the cleaning tool Avast provides then turn completely OFF your Firewall for the Avast install.  Make sure you did a clean reboot before the install also.  This fixed my problems and now it again runs like a champ!  

I wasn't referring to your post or denying that such a problem exists.

I was referring to the original post that started this thread which reads to me like spam because of the overemphasis on mentioning Acronis.  It reads like the poster is here just to hype Acronis.  Sorry that is my take on that post.  Not insisting that I am correct, just saying that is how it reads to me.

[james11]

Yes, I can confirm that the update hosed my machine. I am running Win7 Pro 64.
If it makes a difference, I am runnning Online Armor. I could not access my browser.
I could not uninstall Avast. I could not run Malwarebytes Anti-malware.
I probably could not run anything and reboots were slow.
Things appear back to normal after using the Avast uninstall utility in safe mode.

Now that I have downloaded and re-installed Avast, things are going smooth so far.

[pdoreika]

Both my computers ran the 64 bit Comodo free firewall.  I had the Beta version of Internet Explorer 9 installed on both and all Microsoft updates were up to date.  I also had Spybot S&D with the tea-timer installed on both.  As I meantioned earlier the laptop was fixed with a re-install of the operating system.  I have NOT re-installed Windows on my desktop, but was going to do that tonight.  I might TRY saving it first however.  I am not looking forward to the possibility of reinstalling EVERYTHING I had on it again.  The biggest thing that worries me is that programs won't start, or uninstall.  I wonder if I will be able to disable the antivirus, and even if so if the computer will come back to life enough to uninstall AVAST.  So far it's been a very frustrating issue.

[pdoreika]

Can someone post a link to the "Avast uninstall utility".  I would like to try it tonight.

[Charyb-0]

Can someone post a link to the "Avast uninstall utility".  I would like to try it tonight.

Link to Avast uninstall utility.
http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility

[AU4U]

FLAT OUT BRICKED LAPTOP AS WELL!!!!
Tried to recover the OS from safe mode and it crippled my PC so bad I couldn't even role back to a recovery point!
Ended up having to reinstall the VISTA, then do the upgrade to WIN7 over the Vista factory OS, do a recovery from a mirror image that was 6 months old, THEN, do all the drivers for WIN7 again.

Me thinks that the Online Armor Firewall (free home edition) had something to do with this as well, It may have detected the change in avast!, and prevented the install to complete.
REGARDLESS of the firewall, THIS SHOULD NOT OF HAPPENED!!!

[cardocpdx]

Avast's latest update also locked up my system.

3 week old install of Windows 7 Home Premium x64.  Fully patched.  Windows firewall, Windows defender and no other "security" software.

System will boot but at log on a "userinit.exe error occurs and freezes system.  ALT+CTL+DEL does bring up the screen to start task manager etc.

Since last night I have:
1) Restored from backup 2 days old
2) Installed avast update again
3) System broken - Can't log on.
4) F8 and system Restore (2 day old restore point). Could log on but most applications won't open.
4) Boot to safe mode and uninstall Avast
5) Able to log on, applications work.  Clean install of current download from avast
6) Boot time scan (1 suspicious file deleted from Chrome Cache)
7) System broken - Can't log on.

I'm at work now, when I get home I guess I'll remove avast again and then, if there is no solution on here have to try another AV program.  I've had a long good run with Avast, and I'm sure they will fix whatever is causing this soon. 

[MartinJaeger]

Same to me.
I have a Lenovo Laptop with Windows 7 64bit professional installed.
As Security Software I installed Avast Free Antivirus and Threatfire, using standard Windows “Defener”-Firewall.
It’s a new Installation from about a Month ago, The System is up to Date with all patches.

Avast requested a program update to days ago.
After rebooting nothing works. All Lenovo System Tools, even Window System programs "COM Surrogate" does not work (e.g. can’t open System properties). I can't run Firefox. Luckily Opera did well and I was able to download some deinstaller.

Deinstalling Avast in protected Mode (hitting F8 Key before Windows Logo comes up), was the only solution to get the System back to work.
I also tried to reinstall it, with brought the same problems back. After that I tried to install in protected mode, but even this won’t do.

Another important issue: The deinstaller seems not to delete everything. After reinstalling, all my old program properties, like excluded Folders, are still there.
I first need a full deinstaller that deletes all avast-System registry entries and all definition and other created files and databases of that program. May be that will help, otherwise a clean new install of Avast is not possible.

I would like to hear if someone had a solution for that troublesome update error.

[Charyb-0]

Same to me.
I have a Lenovo Laptop with Windows 7 64bit professional installed.
As Security Software I installed Avast Free Antivirus and Threatfire, using standard Windows “Defener”-Firewall.
It’s a new Installation from about a Month ago, The System is up to Date with all patches.

Avast requested a program update to days ago.
After rebooting nothing works. All Lenovo System Tools, even Window System programs "COM Surrogate" does not work (e.g. can’t open System properties). I can't run Firefox. Luckily Opera did well and I was able to download some deinstaller.

Deinstalling Avast in protected Mode (hitting F8 Key before Windows Logo comes up), was the only solution to get the System back to work.
I also tried to reinstall it, with brought the same problems back. After that I tried to install in protected mode, but even this won’t do.

Another important issue: The deinstaller seems not to delete everything. After reinstalling, all my old program properties, like excluded Folders, are still there.
I first need a full deinstaller that deletes all avast-System registry entries and all definition and other created files and databases of that program. May be that will help, otherwise a clean new install of Avast is not possible.

I would like to hear if someone had a solution for that troublesome update error.

Removing Threatfire has helped. http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=69336.0

Also, if you are using Online Armor allow Avast full incoming and outgoing access. Please try brhokla's suggestion below.

I had the exact problem and Online Armor/Avast new update had several issues.  Do what I did....  Turn online armor completely off. Uninstall Avast then use the Avast removal tool..  Now install the new Avast after a reboot while making sure your Online Armor is OFF!!!!!!  Once installed do a reboot and you will have to tell Online Armor that the Avast stuff is OK.  Should run fine now.  My system wouldn't do anything, was crawling but once I did these steps it now runs fine.

Important: Read this carefully
http://support.emsisoft.com/topic/3305-oa-and-avast-again/