Avast Update to 5.1.889 "breaks" Windows 7 Home Premium x64

[arkit126]

I don't want to leave Avast so my plan is to stay with 5.0.667 for a couple months and then revisit the upgrade situation.

Same as I.

[nba_zazo]

I find several threads that all seem to be on this same topic.

I posted earlier today at http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=69526.0

booted to safe mode and un-installed Avast.

I've been using Avast for 4 years and have never had an issue.  This however is very flustrating.

Does anyone have and installer for a verson of Avast 5 earlier than 5.1.889 for a x64 system?

I agree with you also.  All my programs except IE8 started crashing after the Avast 5 update. Things have returned to normal now after I uninstalled Avast.  I want to go back to an earlier version also. 

[cardocpdx]

I don't have time for further testing right now.  If I get some time I'll try it without the behavior shield.

[kpa1963]

I had a similar problem except I updated to the newest Avast and everything was still working perfectly. Then Windows Update installed a few critical updates and everything started going haywire. Almost all programs wouldn't run including IE8 and 9 beta, Chrome, Firefox, control panel wouldn't open, etc. I tried system restore many times going back to before the Windows updates and that worked temporarily, but every time I rebooted, the Windows updates reinstalled and everything got screwed up again. I finally did a complete system restore and started reinstalling all software, etc. I got all the Windows updates installed, and everything was working perfectly. Then I installed the latest version of Avast, and I started having all the same problems like before. I uninstalled Avast and installed Microsoft Security Essentials until this problem gets worked out, and everything is running fine now. There is definitely a problem with the new Avast version and the latest Windows security update files from several days ago.

[Emy12]

Hi all, new here.

Installed it myself too, Avast free, did not finish the installation process and the laptop froze, I could not do anything (it might be that i did not restart the system when i uninstalled the MSE). I restarted it and it seems fine so far. Win 7 Pro (64bit) action center says that the AV is out of date, but it is not, just updated.
I have the latest version on Avast free.

[BarbeWire]

Same Problem here!

AVAST FREE 5.1.889 killed my Laptop (Windows 7 Professional 64bit), PC (Windows 7 Professional 64bit). My old PC (Windows XP Pro) got no Problem.

Same behavior as above. Programmes didn,t Start, IE, Outlook, MS Office 2007, Total Commander, etc.

All started when i rebooted my Windows after the Update. 5.0.667 did work fine since Months. There is definitly a Problem, maybe its 64bit Version, idk. Can't test it, I have only 64bit Windows 7 PCs around here.

[mr_twinky]

... My theory is that Avast is falsely flagging userinit.exe as dangerous and not allowing it to run which kills the log on process. ...

I tend to agree.  I'm on XP, but when I try to login under one of the user's on my system, I get "userinit.exe: The application failed to properly initialize. 0xc0000022".  It won't continue booting and I don't get desktop icons, taskbar, or start menu.  I went back to 5.0.667 and everything works fine again.  More on my problem here if it helps diagnose yours:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=70100.0

[Pedro Hin]

Now the thing I don't understand is when people have the OS fully updated, patched and when is everything running OK, avast! comes and ruins everything.. kinda strange, hein?

Computering is not an exact science

Exactly, sort of . Computer platforms are like the weather -- chaos. Which in reality it IS an exact science, but we just don't have the capacity yet to consider every possible variable. ...and that's just because we don't always know what they all are.

Take a combination of variables -- all of which are mathematically sound and of course, follow the laws of physics. But there are SO MANY of these variables at play, that a human mind (and often even a supercomputer) cannot predict what will happen.

In the current state of the PC world, there are simply too many possible combination of hardware, drivers, memory, CPU, video chipsets, network interfaces, applications, services, did I mention drivers? .

I can easily see how things will break on 1 percent of machines, no matter how tried and tested it is. It even happens when Microsoft updates things.