slows game play and won't run all shields

Greetings, I am using avast! 5 (0.462) on my Vista Ultimate 64 (8 gigs ram/quad amd). When I try to play my game (everquest 1 with 5 characters) I get such slow down and lag that I haven’t seen in 6 years. Also the program won’t run all the real-time shields even though I’ve clicked the turn on button many times. It keeps telling me that the Antispam is off (won’t turn on) and the Mail Shield is off (also won’t turn on) even though both are marked as Urgent. This has started since I purchased the license for the Avast! internet security version (thought all the bells and whistles would be good to try out).

So how do I get the shields to operate? And what can be done about the game issue (it is played on the internet)?

Thanx for your time.

Just wanted to publicly say that avast! 5 is NOT the cause of my slow game play and now all my shields are up and running. I made the mistake of doing MS updates just prior to running the 5 install. I’ve had to revert back to a 10 Mar restore, then reinstalled 5 and no problems. But I still have to shake out the MS problem. )) So there, my conscience is clear and I hope I have cleared avast! 5’s rep. )))

thanx 4 setting this clear!