My Avast pro seems to have been turned off. I am receiving the stopped or inconsistant state message, and have done some research to discover what to do. Everything seems to point to reinstalling, the problem is that even though I have the programme in my programme folder, it does not appear in control panel and I cannot find it in the programm intself or anywhere on my computer.I have defender on my computer and have had for quite a while (I was assured that avast was developed along with microsoft)so hopefully this is protecting my computer. What shall I do to install avast again?
have you tried avast repair
For a repair of avast. Windows, Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button from the pop-up window, scroll down to Repair, click next and follow.
If no success, remove avast with this and reboot, then install again
http://www.avast.com/en-no/uninstall-utility
Important all previous used AV must be removed before installing avast
it is also recomended to run a removal tool so all leftovers from previous used AV is gone
you find removal tools here - run and reboot
Uninstallers for Security Software
http://thewebatom.net/uninstallers/security-software/
Removal tools of 3rd party AV programs can also be download from
the following Avast website:
https://support.avast.com/index.php?languageid=1&group=eng&_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=574
( The removal tool for avast! Antivirus (should you ever need it) : http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe
I cannot do any of the above as my programme does not show in control panel. i cannot do anything in the avast programme (that will run) as it will noit allow me to. please understand that the programme is still on my computer as i can open it, but it will not allow me to do anything in it.
Cheers
If you read reply 1 you will notice that Pondus has supplied you the link for the avast uninstall tool, download this tool and run it from safe mode.
The direct download link for the avast! removal tool is in my post. 
Sorry Bob, i mentioned Pondus’s name as he did reply to the op first, were you feeling left out 
were you feeling left outNot at all but one was a link to the website and the other was a direct download link - easier for the user. :) http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear6.exe
I prefer giving the link to the avast website page as A) that gives some information on running the uninstall utility and B) that would normally be pointing at the latest version of the cleaning tool. Which from the web page is aswClear.exe, no version suffix, for me that avoids confusion on what version it is for (all), where the aswClear6.exe name implies it is for a specific version…
It’s the link supplied to me by Avast to pass on to those wanting to change over to avast!.
Which isn’t the one on the web page, which is what I think we should recommend. Whilst they both have the same MD5 hash# right now. However, were there to be any changes then presumably the one on the web page link would be pointing at the latest version.
+1