Its great news the avast 5 is gonna be released soon. 
Unlike 4.8 will it support boot-scan for 64bit in the free home version.
Not the initial 5.0 release; probably in 5.1.
The boot-time scan in 64bit OSes is somewhat more complex than that of 32bit OSes, it is one of a 64bit OS being more secure in this regard. From what has been said in the forums already this is being worked on, but is unlikely to be in version 5.0.
It may however be in something like version 5.1, but there has been no firm date. As Alwil are working on 5.0 to get that ready and having stated it won’t be available in 5.0 it will only be after that when they can get back on that function.
There you have that confirmation from one of the Alwil team, Igor.
Dear Igor,
I consider boot-scan feature as the primary usp for avast which differentiates it from other av programs. Running a full system scan after the OS boot procedure is complete is pretty slow and nearly impossible for scanning bigger HDD’s . Infections may be active in the background which may stop avast from functioning properly . Boot scan resolves all the above said issues as it takes place well before the system loads.
I was really hoping the boot scan issue be fixed for 64bit OS in avast 5.0.Doesn’t matter even if the release is delayed.
Waiting for 5.1 to fix it even before 5.0 is released will be a bit too long.
I don’t see any reasons why an ordinary Windows scan should be slower than boot-time scan; on contrary, the boot-time scan will be slower (unless it “makes it up” by supporting less archives, thus scanning “faster”).
The boot-time scan is not meant for regular scanning (it is somehow limited in archive support, as well as removal of registry associations, etc.). It should be used when you suspect an infection.
No, the release will certainly not be delayed because of a 64bit boot-time scan. And it’s not just a boot-time scan - the whole program will have to be 64bit natively - and it will take quite some development time.
I have found in my past removals… the boot time scan has found and removed more that a scan from with-in Windows. Well, especially the removals. A windows scan has found infections on PCs, but could not delete them… until I did a boot-time scan.
I guess the point is, the boot time scan does differeciate Avast from all the rest. Looking fwd to it in 5.x
True once avast detects a virus within windows…it becomes very difficult to remove it since most of the times its running in the background.