Cannot update / cannot uninstall

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

First off, it’s been awhile that when I try to update the program or the database / virus defs, I get “last encountered error: access is denied”.

Not sure when and why it happened, but my last version is 7.0.1426.

Now I cannot uninstall it either. It gets frozen at 50% and then goes nowhere for hours.
I had to kill the process and then I no longer see Avast installed but it still starts.
Then I deleted the directories and got the BSD.
I had to restore the system.

Now. What do I do?

2

read instructions…run from safe mode http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility

reboot, install latest

3

Yeah…did that before coming back here. from safe mode. problem is pressing F8 on my comp did not give it to me so had to do it from MSconfig.
Installed latest. Still would like to know what that “access denied” was all about so I had to uninstall.