I’m Administrator on my laptop, but Outlook says I’m not allowed to disable that plugin. Any tips on how to do so?
Yes, this is the normal behavior. The Office executables are not started elevated.
Go to Microsoft Office folder and right click the Outlook.exe. Start it as an administrator.
OK - that did it. Removing the avast spam plugin fixed the problem! I wasted a couple hours un-installing, searching, re-installing, etc.
Now, the toolbar is gone 
Avast 7.0 Same problem here Win 7 64 bit SP1 Outlook 2010 + BCM 2010 - keeps crashing locking up outlook since Avast programe update to version 7.0.1426 No problems before this update.
I had to disable outlook Addin
I only use 3 Outlook Addins, 2 for BCM and the Avast one. The normal Outlook installation or repair loads a lot we dont need that slows outlook load.
Have to use task manager to close outlook
So annoying, please issue a fix pronto!
Thanks
I just purchased Avast last week, ever since my Outlook 2007 locks up and currently I can’t even open it. What do I do? I have re-installed my Office 2007 software but it didn’t help.
I have been experiencing the same problem on my two home machines. Both began exhibiting the same behavior when installed version 7.0.1426 of Avast. Outlook would run for a few minutes at a time but then freeze when any email was sent or recieved.
First I temporarily disabled the avasts mail shield and Outlook worked fine until it came back on ten minutes later.
Following the information in the previous posts I disabled the Outlook AVAST Spam Addin on both of my laptops. Both are now working fine. With the mail shield turned back on. However, I don’t know if it’s actually doing anything.
Any update on tracking down the root cause of the issue and if/when we will get a patch?