kong,

A second question. Can I turn off resident protection alltogether and just use avast as a standard virus scannner?

To do this, add the following line to the [AAVM] section of your \data\avast4.ini file:

DefaultResTask=

This will turn off the resident protection.
If the [AAVM] section is not present, add it to the end of the file, like this:

……
[AAVM]
DefaultResTask=

Hope this helps,
Vlk