Free Antivirus stopped

My free Antivirus 6.0.1367 stopped today even though my registration didn’t end until April. I couldn’t get registered again, so I figured I’d spring for $19.99 since I’ve been happy with the product. I was not able to upload the license file, but got an error message saying “no valid license content found” using both the method in the email with my paid registration or using the icon method. Tried to uninstall avast but the removal tool “was not a valid Win 32 application” either in safe mode or otherwise. I have Windows Vista. I also cannot disable the avast self protection mode either by right clicking the icon or through maintenance. I am not very savvy with software. Please help!

well i would then go for latest avast…

we are now at 7.0.1426

Tried to uninstall avast but the removal tool "was not a valid Win 32 application" either in safe mode or otherwise.
not sure why this happens ???

See:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=95170.0

i tried to install the newest version and got “error reading product data from c:\programfiles\Avastsoftware\AVAST\setup\part-setup+ais-55.vpx”. setup cannot continue