Black Screen of Death After Update and Restart Prompted By Avast

[JohnWood]

Win 7 Pro 64 bit (relatively fresh, 2mos old)
i5 750 8gb ram radeonhd46xx early 2011 build.

Went to do a full manual scan at the end of my day.

AVAST console showed an update available been out of town three weeks so I presume I was going from a version prior to 7.0.1473 to 7.0.1474.

Update went through all three stages of the update and then prompted for a restart.

Allowed the restart and screen locked to a black desktop, no icons. Waited 30 minutes and next reboot failed after password to a black screen of death. 

Did quick search, way too much of this going on and I see no "step by step" rescue in an AVAST forum so I used Control Panel to delete AVAST.

Rebooted a few more times and then used "Restore" to a 24 hour old point and still have AVAST BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH.

Called the 866 number and Edgar(?) said he would connect me to for fee Tech Support, but Shreyas Murali chimed in on my Facebook post that this is where the cure is.   

Note: Just noticed that the AVAST icon is still present and after yet another reboot, the control panel is showing AVAST is still present version 7.0.1466.0 installed 8.25.2012 Folder search confirms this though the program allegedly update last night to newest version 1AM Nov 1 CST.

WIN 7 Repair attempt as last ditch effort to purge AVAST 7 Crapware damage.

[JohnWood]

Follow up: After subsequent reboot it appears the AVAST AV ver 7.0.1466 did not unintall completely even though a folder search after the initial uninstall showed only two folders with a single text document created at the 8.25.12 install. Second uninstall prompted with a survey, so rebooting once last time in Safe Mode to see if the program is actually gone.

FYI, I own both a paid and free, having acquired a license for my laptop since it is used in travel and exposed to wifi. Fortunately It deleted the paid from this laptop as opposed to letting it update. In my book, AVAST 7 is now solidly in the "crapware" category.

Like many, the affected computer is my livelyhood so I don't have time to wait around for a discussion on possible fixes and I will be damned if I pay for that same response via tech support as was suggested by "Edgar" in customer support.

Also, if you have been punked by AVAST, consider posting in Facebook to save others since it appears that all posts there suggest that the page is being stuffed with "all is well with AVAST". 

I WordPress quite successfully for better SEO...

[JohnWood]

Thank you AVAST for all the help after the update from 1466 to 1474 crashed. It was faster to back up the few stray files in Safe Mode, do a clean Win 7 install and then install programs than to wait for assistance here.

Use the current AVAST 7 updates at your own risk. Fortunately I was backed up except for a few files.