Technical,

This is strange behavior indeed! Glad you could restore to operation.

Sorry to make you the sacrifical lamb…but I told you to leave well enough alone. ;D

Did Avast give any visual warning before crash?
Any virus alert?

I think maybe VLK should address this matter in more detail. In simplicity, it is a conflict between the Avast scanner and either the swp or page files. The only explanation I can offer is if Avast delays the use of the swap or page files, it could inhibit the virtual memory operation and therefore could wreck havoc with system operation. The other files in the exclusion list are only text files and the scanner should not affect them.

Techie