The user is using Avast 5 on a netbook, which is used only when she is travelling (approx. once every two months).
When she boots the computer, the Windows Security Center (XP SP3) says, that the antivirus is too old/not updated (this is not the exact phrase, since it's Czech version of Windows).
If it were my netbook, I would just ignore the warning, but the non-technical user cannot distinguish between bogus warning like this and real threat and thus she is alarmed.
What happens is probably a race condition:
1) the computer boots
2) Avast needs a lot of updates, since it was last booted two months ago
3) inbetween, the Windows Security Center kicks in and whines, that the antivirus is not updated properly
Solution could be:
1) when Avast is receiving updates, it should not tell Windows "I am not updated" - but I don't know the internals of Windows Security Center, so I don't know if some polling happens or what the mechanisms are
2) turning off antivirus alerts in Windows Security Center is not a good idea, because we still need to be warned about the real errors
3) maybe there is some configuration option or registry key I can tweak: any ideas?
p.s. after all the updates are applied, the Windows Security Center goes to "OK" state again, but it's too late, it already alerted the user.