Avast on-demand scans without Avast UI running

It seems I found a nasty surprise waiting for me after I upgraded to Avast 5.

I can no longer right-click and scan something without the Avast user process running. I try and get this error:

Avast UI process (AvastUI.exe) is currently not running. Please run the application before starting a scan.

Is this a permanent design decision, that every user on the system must run the Avast UI program in order to scan for viruses?

To me, the Avast UI is unnecessary clutter in my system notification area if I’m not running as an administrator.

All the scannings run into the avastUI.exe process by design, as far I know.

This will have to change for me to continue using Avast as my AV client.

ClamWin has this functionality (on-demand) without the service, so I could use Avast + ClamWin (and disable the per-user AvastUI process), but I might as well find a program that has both the service as well as an on-demand scanner.

(This is not an attack against you, Tech, but a comment for the developers.)

No problem with my systems.

The scanning doesn’t run in AvastUi.exe, but rather in the AvastSvc service.
What the AvastUi does provide, however, is all the GUI - including the one you see after you use the rightclick Scan option. So this is unlikely to change.

I don’t think Avast has to make a separate GUI, but it would be nice if they lightened the GUI allowed it to run on-demand without planting it as an ever-present process for my session. As it stands, the GUI all of a sudden acquired bloat and inconvenience (which Avast4 may have had, but it didn’t force me to interact with the GUI much).