Disaster today installing 7.0.1426 on Windows 7 64 bit PC.

[ArghMatey]

Hey folks.  I'm new here, and in fact I joined so that I could share my experience today in the hopes it would help.

My Dell XPS 420 quad-core with the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and 6 gigs of memory had been running very happily with version 6.

Today the auto update feature asked me if I wanted to install version 7, so of course I allowed it to.   When the download/install was done and it asked me if I wanted to restart, I clicked no (or later or whatever) and in a few minutes later I restarted the machine.

The machine came up with wallpaper only and the program icons never appeared. 

Eventually I got frusterated and pressed the power button for several seconds which forces a shutdown.

I waited a few seconds and started the machine.   The wallpaper came up and after what seemed a long time the icons finally appeared.  Everything seemed to run very slow and soon the machine locked up and I had to repeat the power switch stop and restart I just described.

I forgot how many times I repeated this process.  My event logs show the machine being stopped abnormally and restarted over the course of an hour.   I noticed on one iteration that the Avast icon on the right side of the task bar took a long time to show up.

On one iteration I clicked on the Avast icon and got the new Avast control screen and after I clicked through a few of the settings panels it locked up, and as usual I couldn't even launch Task Manager, so I did the hard power down and turn on again thing one more time.

This time when the machine rebooted I immediately uninstalled Avast and rebooted the normal way.

The machine rebooted and everything is now fine.

Someone on a different thread tipped me off to the boot performance log in Event Viewer and when I looked there on this machine I noticed that I had no Boot Performance diagnostic messages ever until I installed Avast 7.  During one boot up, there was a warning about Avast, and other diagnostic messages concerning a number of other common Windows modules that normally load with every boot up.   It seems that Avast not only loaded slowly, but ground the loading of many other Windows components almost to a halt!

Anyway, what a mess.   There is nothing terribly unique about the machine I installed Avast 7 on today.  It seems maybe testing on Windows 7 64 bit was not as thorough as it might have been.    I looks like I'm not the first, and I suspect I won't be the last to report this type of problem.   I just wanted to bring it to the Avast developers' attention.

[AntiVirusASeT]

could u state any programmes u run at startup? (eg. any other antiviruses?)

[ArghMatey]

There were no other anti-virus apps running, not even Windows Defender.

The Startup programs are below, according to what I see when I run MSCONFIG:

HCIMNTR Application   (Logitech)
Microsoft Security Client   --  (Perhaps now that I have activated Windows Defender, which was not active when I was running Avast.)
Microsoft Windows Operating System  (that's the ehTray.exe below)
Creative CTSched
CTxfHlp  (Creative audio devices)
Java Platform Auto Updater
Yahoo! Mail
Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager
OpenOffice.org 3.3


According to System Information, the Startup Programs are:

Bluetooth HCI Monitor   
CreativeTaskScheduler   
ehTray.exe   
MSC   [this is the Microsoft Security Client]
OpenOffice.org 3.3   
Sidebar   NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE   
Sidebar   NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Sidebar   [computer name]\UpdatusUser   
SigmatelSysTrayApp

[AntiVirusASeT]

ur startup seems ok. microsoft security client is part of microsoft security essentials. it is an antivirus. please uninstall it (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_start/what-is-a-microsoft-security-client-and-what-does/c3f61ffa-9018-4ec6-ab9e-89ba86ad7d52)

please follow craigb's advice

i know this will be lengthy but it may solve ur problems. please follow the instructions below.

1. Download a fresh Avast! 7 package from http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download (to reduce chance of corrupted install)
2. uninstalling Avast! the normal way with windows
3. run Avast! uninstall utility http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility (please do it in SAFE MODE!   )
4. run the uninstall utility (2 TIMES) total, one for Avast! 7
5. reboot and go into safe mode once more, second time for Avast! 6 (this is because i noted u have updated to Avast! 7 from Avast! 6)
6. reboot again, this time to normal windows mode
7. install the fresh package

this is because there is a possibility that Avast! failed to update correctly from v6 to v7.

if the above method fails, upload the general support package to ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming (can be found in screenshot) for Avast! developers to have a look.

[ArghMatey]

Problem solved!   Thanks to those who replied.   Here the scoop...

Based on the replies pointing me to Microsoft Security Essentials, I looked on my second Win 7 64 bit machine (Gateway AMD quad core) and found that MSE had not been installed (and I had yesterday deinstalled Avast 6 from this machine so that nobody in my family would hit the upgrade button and install Avast 7).

So I went ahead and installed Avast 7 on this Gateway machine and everything went perfect. 

A few minutes ago I went into Programs and Features on the Dell XPS 420 (where the disaster happened yesterday) and deinstalled Microsoft Security Essentials.

I just installed Avast 7 and everything is working fine.

Now, I had never made an effort to install Microsoft Security Essentials on the Dell machine.   Then I remembered that the Dell machine and the Gateway machine have different histories.   The Dell machine was an EBAY purchase that had Vista 64 bit installed.  I had upgraded Vista 64 bit to Windows 7 64 bit which preserves the software installed under Vista.  It seems the Microsoft Secuirty Essentials install dated to the Dell machine's Vista era. 

The Gateway machine was also an EBAY purchase but came with Vista 32 bit.   As everyone knows, to get from Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit one must flatten the machine and start from scratch, which is what I had done with the Gateway machine. 

So, my hypothesis is that the Dell "disaster" was caused by the holdover Microsoft Security Essentials install from Vista 64 bit.  (In Programs and Features the install date for MSE looked like months prior to when I performed the Windows 7 upgrade.)

The good news is that not only am I once again a happy Avast! user but that my Dell machine did not have a typical history prior to upgrading to Avast! 7.

Thanks again to those who pointed me in the right direction. 

[CraigB]

Your welcome 
Somehow i deleted my earlyer post