Sorry no real suggestions, I was just reporting it was working on both of my systems (XP Pro and win7) on WP default settings and no exceptions in avast.

All I can suggest is checking that you are using the latest WP version, 28.9.2013.1:28.9.2013.1 as that is what I have.

It is weird that you don’t get a Hardened Mode popup, yet when disabling the Hardened Mode WP runs, so I just wonder if there isn’t something else in the mix, possibly the DeepScreen and/or Hardened Mode in conjunction slows the WinPatrol.exe -expressboot startup option so it doesn’t start, but doesn’t find anything to cause an alert/pop-up.