@DavidCo,
I understood what you meant with that registry hive/key.
I apologise if the following paragraphs sound “too basic” to you in particular. My intention is to be clear and thorough, even for other potential readers.
What is not so clear to me is why to bother with this registry hive. If you could run from Safe mode aswclear.exe once for Avast 6, reboot into Safe mode again and run it again selecting Avast 5 this time, all relevant traces should be gone.
Now, there are several items to consider.
1_ Use aswclear.exe from Windows Safe Mode, always. I know that the original instructions say “safe mode as a second optional, if normal mode fails”. IMNSHO, the “wording” used is not accurate, to say the least. The only reason NOT to run aswclear under Windows Safe Mode should be if the user doesn’t know how to boot into it (and I would question even that reason). In any case, whenever possible, aswclear should be ran under Safe Mode.
2_ Select the correct version of Avast in aswclear. The removal tool not only takes care of folders, but most specially about other remnant “objects”.
3_ Whenever possible, select the correct folder where the correct version of Avast was originally installed. Avast 6, when updated from Avast 5, would use the path you mentioned (the one of Avast 5). When “cleaned” installed or updated from a previous Avast 6 (not 5 ), the path is not the same as you mentioned.
4_ You should reboot into Safe Mode between each run of aswclear. In theory, Windows under Safe Mode shouldn’t care, and “all should be fine anyway”. We know how theories coming from the Windows world are not always that correct in practice, and I don’t really need to get into specifics. So, please reboot anew into Safe Mode between each run of aswclear.
Here is the bottom line: you are troubleshooting. Do as much as you can to avoid some “strange” problem (hence, the PITA reboots). If you follow the “rules”, it should clean up any remnants.
Now, there is one additional trick, but ONLY if the above suggestions don’t result in a successfull “Avast remnants are gone” status. You could follow the same instructions, but skipping the “Add/Remove programs” step. This means intentionally leaving the program folder and registry hives, so to clean them with the removal tool.
This is a “last resort”, and only when the “normal instructions” (including both “add/Remove programs” and aswclear.exe) have been already tried and the results are not the expected ones.
Following the correct procedures, the path you mentioned should not exist anymore, “anywhere”. This is not exactly true, since the path may be somewhere, in some shortcut / link / registry hive. But the important thing is that any such remnant should be controlled only by Windows (or the user), and not by Avast. This means that Avast can be “clean” reinstalled in the new current location / path of Avast 6 (different from the one you posted), and “it should work”.
In such (successful) case, the registry hive you mentioned should not matter anymore. In case it does, it could be corrected by some registry cleaner like CCleaner (but I don’t usually recommend running any cleaner in “massive mode”, but cleaning specific group of hives/keys with it).
Please report back when you finish with aswclear and a new download and installation of Avast setup (try to avoid previously downloaded installers).
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