avast 5 uninstall problems

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

okay so i have researched and attempted many different methods of removing this software.

backstory:
I shrunk and uninstalled as much bloat as possible with the intention of doing a scratch build of the os. this was going to be imaged and cloned onto a ssd once completed - that part works. problem i am running into is that somewhere along the lines, avast wouldn’t show up in my system tray during startup unless i ran the program myself not to mention it had a lot of errors, most likely due to my registry cleaning using IO bit tools. anyways I have tried uninstalling using windows “programs and features” but it doesn’t show up there (win 7 64 home). I have tried deleting through the program files folder on the os, but it wont let me, says i need permission and im the admin so wtf? Tried the uninstall utility but when in safe mode i get some errors as seen in the links to the screens and the text is below:

http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu18/ezeil907/th_avast1.jpg


http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu18/ezeil907/th_avast2.jpg

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: aswclear5.exe
Application Version: 1.0.0.1
Application Timestamp: 4b59eb2b
Fault Module Name: aswclear5.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.1
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b59eb2b
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00015310
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

so my question is what does a guy have to do to get rid of this completely f’d up installation so that i can put it back on the right way, because i absolutely love avast!

any suggestions welcomed, until then I am without virus protection :frowning:
since i believe this will inhibit me from installing any other virus software out there .

2

Firstly IOBit tools is a rogue application.

IOBit Theft Conclusion
http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=33217

3

bah, i fixed it finally.

what i did in case others need assistance.

reimaged, and rolled back all registry cleans to the earliest possibly date

checked the “programs and features” still not there

ran avast 5, and seleted the options to turn off the safety features (the ones that stop potential threats from uninstalling or stopping antivirus services.)

placed the uninstall utility on desktop, restart

hit f9 right after system post to get into the windows boot loader options, hit f8

started safe mode (with or without networking i choose networking as i am typing this from there atm.

run uninstall utility once logged in, and direct it to program files, awil software, avast! (folder)

hit uninstall

Tada

now i have the option to reinstall or not.

hope this helps

in regards to this, i dont use it for malware-- never have, i simply use their tool package as needed to easily remove and find unwanted crap on my system. If I really wanted to I could do all the things their tool package offers manually (which is probably better) but in the end i dont feel like scouring my reg files for misc. crap that has been left over when i can just run a few scripts to find it for me. about the theft, didn’t know – but wont stop me from using this product (because it is free)