i have read the same instructions as these in this and other forums! is avast dealing with this issue? its a serious one (obviously).
i have a further problem to add to it. but first i would like to know WHY this is happening?
i have since tonight had the very same problem. and though it may not be connected, i noticed it happened after my PC (running xp pro sp3, latest firefox) began restarting itself without me telling it to. i system restored and that seemed cured. so far so good.
THEN once i got myself up and running noticed, as the others above have, that avast had the little cross symbol, denoting it had stopped running. so i opened avast (6.0.1367, free) and got all the above notices in it when i tried fixing or updating.
i followed the above control panel change/uninstall instructions but got this notice:
"error reading product data "C:\program files\setup\part-setup_ais-557.vxp" setup cannot continue"
why is this actually happening? is it part of some form of malicious software attack? is it a serious bug in the latest versions? is a fix being readied for this?
i am as i write installing the 50.3mb update from the avast site, and hoping this may resolve the issue. and may try the latest version of aast free.
incidently i formerly used to always use AVG but found it seeming to fall way way behind its former glory, and tried avast and was highly impressed by its free version, and would when i can afford have gotten the premium version. but for now i am on hold with that. and may begin to look at other antivirus solutions.
i am hoping this will be resolved soon as i have really liked avast up till now