I would have to agree with what Avast! told you. It has to be a problem somewhere else. I run Outlook Express and Avast! in XP SP3 without problems. I even changed the settings to not have it go directly to the inbox and OE loads perfectly without any errors of any kind. I would suggest uninstalling all other security related apps and just leave Avast! and the XP firewall. Then see if you still get the errors. I’m almost certain you won’t.