Spec8472
I've been reading through the thread tonight and realized I have been experiencing what many posters have described. I almost lost my whole system (blue screen of death at bootup) over the issue discussed. I was extremely fortunate to finally fumble my way back to successfully booting up in XP. After a recent automatic Avast! update, I began to have problems. Multiple times I received the "Part_setup_ais-557.vpx" file error, another poster mentioned. I couldn't erase, uninstall, rename, copy over a file, neither could I get any web page links to work in MS Outlook. In addition, I was unable to use system restore to reset the system to any previous date over the past two months.
The Geek Squad could only offer to reformat my HD at great expense in about 7-10 days. I informed them I could do the same in about 30 minutes, today. Somehow, after several days of trying things, I booted in safe mode and manually erased everything Avast! - even the ".vpx" file, but it still wouldn't boot in XP SP3. From safe mode I ran my local copy of the Avast! 7 setup file and for the first time in a week, it booted in XP without crashing. After installation, I then uninstalled it - in hopes of cleaning up any damaged Avast! files. I held my breath and rebooting in safe mode where I was able to download and install a fresh copy of Avast! 7. With a few exceptions, the system was mostly restored to normal. That was approximately 5 days ago (Mar 16). Since then the system has automatically updated several times, including today. Now, I have just discovered the web page links no longer work, giving the error - "This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions on this computer. See your system administrator." That would be me. However, the system administrator (me) has made no changes in the security settings. I wouldn't dare change anything until Avast! becomes a stable program.
I do not have the name of the poster in your response of March 14, 2012, 07:05:44 AM, but the "fix" was for a problem very similar to mine. You asked about a file, "dlaifs_m.sys" and I located the file on my computer, dated 2006. As part of the fix you gave a link to an archive file, "aswSnx.zip". Do you have a recommendation for me? From reading your reply post that just arrived, maybe I should wait until the next release.
Thanks,
rb-arch