Avast 2014 - 9.0.2008 was released earlier this afternoon. Whilst I don’t know if that resolves this issue or not it may be worth checking. See http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=139606.msg1018608#msg1018608 for more information and download links.

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Well that just made matters worse! Thanks AVAST

Not only is boot still very slow and the desktop icon first fully populate then turn white then slowly re-populate about 1 every 1-5 seconds but now the Firewall is not enabled and no reason given other than “Unable to start Firewall”

HP Pavilion G series, Win 7 Pro