Thank you very much for your timely reply Bob. But, alas…no joy. I followed the directions to the letter and the minute Avast finished installing it popped up and said the mail shield was turned off. The weird thing is that if you go into the component settings Avast shows the mail shield as on. But, it isn’t. I can turn it on either via the system icon or through the main Avast UI. But every restart turns it back off. But, thanks for your time.