Thanks.

I did not have a firewall installed when the problem first appeared. I now have Zone Alarm but have disabled it before each new install.

I still have good internet connection. Indeed avast has upgraded my virus filles after each reinstall. It is strange as the program is doing its scanning and upgrading just fine. It is just that I cannot get from the program splash screen into the main screens so I can configure it and generate a system scan. That process halts when the error screen appears.

I have even tried downloading a fresh program file in case there was something corrupt in that, but no change. Before that re install I put JV16 through the registry to clear out anything left from the avast uninstall

The only thing I have not tried is to do an install deselecting the skins. The only logic in that is that the error seems to relate to a skins function. Might try that.

I do not use a proxy.

I have not intentionally changed the avast.ini file

Thanks for persisting!