Today 2 computers in my friends house were infected severely with ‘win32/sality’(no AV installed). I downloaded Avast free and tried to install, but the installation wizard disappeared soon after beginning the file extraction and i couldn’t install avast ??!. So I downloaded AVG free, installed and repaired the corrupted files(note that : ‘repaired’ not ‘deleted’). During this time my pen drive also got infected with the same virus. I connected it to another pc which has Avast installed. Avast detected the virus but failed to repair…!. AVG is better in some fields…, can we expect better performance from Avast 7 in repairing and self protection as the beta is now going on…??
Install an antivirus in an infected computer, specially with sality, is a shot in the dark… Could work, could work for a while, could fail miserably…
If sality does not come back later, just let us know.
Of course, the better would be cleaning the computer before installing the antivirus… and the best is never let the computer without one 
Only way to clean file infectors is to take the HDD out, place it in other system as secondary disk. Nothing on it should be running (if used as secondary disk it won’t). Then you scan it and clean the junk (and replace files as needed because not all can be repaired). Other way is by using bootable tools but those are often limited in functionality.
Today 2 computers in my friends house were infected severely with 'win32/sality'(no AV installed)I would not trust that computer..... ::)
Virut and other File infectors - Throwing in the Towel?
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2009/02/virut-and-other-file-infectors-throwing.html
Agree with you Tech…and hope Avast will be better in repair with version 7…
Thanks…and a delayed Congrats on seeing you as an Avast team member…
it means nothing. On the other virus it could be the opposite
But it is not an excuse to not get better. avast could go much further on cleaning. Although, protection is much more important than a post factum cleaning.
Doing a cleanup of file infectors on local system is VERY hard and no matter what product you’re using, it will be hard. I’ve been cleaning one of my systems that was infected by Virut and Sality. Due to nature of it, every execution and access spreads the virus.
First of all why no protection? Second Avast will protect you better than AVG before you get infected. Third don’t get me started about AVG it’s total rubbish… Esp if you talking about free version… I had AVG and got infected all the time and even hacked into… I would trust MSE more than AVG! LOL!
you should not install avast immediately!!! it will die in that sality infected machine… at least use malwarebytes to cure the sality first… probably hitman pro or combofix boot into safe mode… if it gets blocked then run chameleon 
then when system is clean install avast then
... at least use malwarebytes to cure the sality first...Malwarebytes does not scan and clean fileinfectors.....but MBAM PRO will block the installer.....if detected
read the blog / link i posted above…written by Miekiemoes - Assistant Director of Research @ Malwarebytes
Yes, I trust Avast over AVG or any other AV in protection and I’m also using (also recommend) it for the past two years without any problem :). Sality may return after a scan and repair, but I just want to point out that AVG has better repairing capabilities than Avast…
Have you tried the “virus and worms” section. They will give you more help there. http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=4.0
I used AVG for several years. “AVG is better in some fields” I don’t think so. I have found avast to be more than “better” in all fields.
I totally agree with Seany007 AVG is rubbish. Like he said "don’t get me started with AVG.
I would also vote for the repair feature. That is quite handy and sometimes needed.
AVG has too many false positives, makes ur computer sluggish, extremely slow virus removal, updating process sometimes crash or fails…
Unfortunately, the majority of malware in the wild today isn’t viruses, but rather worms, trojans, and the like, or hybrid combinations of those, for which repair would be essentially impossible. That’s the primary reason the virus-repair function was dropped from avast quite a while back.
I would also vote for the repair feature. That is quite handy and sometimes needed.