aFTR UPGRADE FROM 5.0 TO 6.0 NOTEBOOK WILL NOT LOAD

[howiem]

SORRY FOR THE CAPS, BUT I HAVE EYE PROBLEMS. I HAD JUST RPLACED AVIRA FREE WITH AVAST 5.0 FREE WHICH USES LESS RESOURCES THAN AVIRA.  AFTER INSTALLING AVAST 5.0, I UPBGRADED TO 6.0 VIA THE GUI.  THN I REBOOTED.  WHEN WINDOWS XP SP3 FULLY PATCHED STARTED TO LOAD, I SAW A LARGE WINDDOW WITH SOMETHING ABOUT WEB REPUTATION.  AT THAT POINT WINDOWS HUNG UP.  I HAD TO POWER OFF.  TRIED TO RESTART THE COMPUTER A COUPLE OF TIMES WITH THE SAME RESULTS.  WENT TO SAFE MODE, DOWNLOADED THE AVAST UNINSTALL TOOL ASWCLEAR.EXE AND REMOVED AVAST. 
AVAST 5 WORKED WELL, BUT WANTED TO TRY 6.0. I HAD TRIED IT ONCE BEFORE WHEN 6.0 WAS FIRST RELEASED, BUT HAD SIMILAR PROBLEMS. 
ACER EMACHINE DUOCORE NOTEBOOK 1GB RAM
HARDWARE FIREWALL : SMC ROUTER
SOFTWARE FIREWALL: NONE
SUPER-ANTISPYWARE FREE
MALWAREBYTES FREE (ON-CALL)
HOSTSMAN FREE
SANDBOXIE (PAID)
SPYWAREBLASTER (PAID)
SECUNIA PSI
WINPATROL (PAID) 2011

[DavidR]

I suggest that you do a clean reinstall of avast, including ensuring that all remnants of Avira are removed.

This will require booting into safe mode, where avast doesn't run and uninstall it, that hopefully should allow you to boot into normal mode.

Presumably you are using another computer to post this. So use that to download the relevant programs, tools, copy to a USB stick so you can transfer to the notebook.

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- Avira RegistryCleaner. http://www.avira.com/en/support-download-avira-registrycleaner

- Also see, http://www.askvg.com/ultimate-collection-of-uninstallers-removal-tools-for-all-popular-anti-virus-software/ for others not listed above.
and http://uninstallers.blogspot.com/ which have unstallers for the various AVs.

Ideally I would suggest that you run the Avira uninstall tool first - I don't know if any of these can be run from safe mode, possibly not.

####
- Download the latest version of avast, 6.0.1091 http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (if you didn't save your last download). Use that when you reinstall.

- Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, aswClear.exe find it here and save it to your HDD (it has uninstall tools for both 5.x and 6.0.x).

• 1. Now uninstall avast! (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.
• 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility from safe mode, first for 5.x if previously installed and then for 6.0, once complete reboot into normal mode.
• 3. install the latest version, reboot.