I removed the folder ALWil that was listed in the HKEY Local Machine Software because I was following the below suggestions given to Volans by S.Z.C.
1.) completely uninstall avast! (no matter you already tried it)
2.) reboot your system
3.) clean all registry keys regarding avast!
4.) reboot again
5.) perform clean install of avast! one more time.
The error that I was getting was something like:
UNKNOWN ERROR
The program can’t load the skin. The function “usiGetSkin” is failed.
It’s probably too late to do a system restore because I installed SP2 a couple of days after the problem arose with the usigetskin error. I have the firewall on sp2 turned off because I have always used DSL to access the net and it has it’s own firewall which was never a problem. The following is a log from spybot which lists the keys that I “fixed” upon my next run of spybot. I don’t think anything is going to work now because instead of running around unprotected I downloaded a trial version of another antivirus and now I saw on thier site that you have to have a special uninstall utility to totally remove all the registry keys and you have to contact thier support people to get the special utility. Who knows how long that might take. I will go ahead and show the spybot log before I ran it again and “Fixed” the items. I think this might get too complicated for me to be able to fix. I am protected for right now. I will contact the other antivirus support and see if I can get the uninstall utility and then see about reinstalling Avast after I clean out the other program. Thanks for your help though and bless you for your efforts in this forum. I wonder why ashmaisv still runs at startup though.
— Search result list —
Brainbuster brainbot: Root class (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ActiveSkin4.Skin

Brainbuster brainbot: Root class (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ActiveSkin4.Skin.1

Brainbuster brainbot: Class ID (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{0944D16C-D0F4-4389-982A-A085595A9EB3}

Brainbuster brainbot: Root class (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ActiveSkin4.SkinLabel

Brainbuster brainbot: Root class (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ActiveSkin4.SkinLabel.1

Brainbuster brainbot: Class ID (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{5954EA75-9BFA-461A-BD34-CEA3A861FF19}

Brainbuster brainbot: Settings (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Component Categories{010E0B1F-1A47-4D07-A83F-43A819E39CCF}

Brainbuster brainbot: Settings (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface{4921908C-7090-4D37-A6B3-FC447F08378A}

Brainbuster brainbot: Settings (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface{750FC67C-0311-4391-9864-A2EFED49BD28}

Brainbuster brainbot: Settings (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface{F3FC950C-7583-4377-BAD8-EFBEAA33273C}

Brainbuster brainbot: Settings (Registry key, nothing done)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib{90F3D7B3-92E7-44BA-B444-6A8E2A3BC375}

MS Office 9.0: Recently used files (28 files) (Directory, nothing done)
C:\Documents and Settings\Debra\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Recent\

Log: Activity: COM+.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\COM+.log

Log: Activity: SchedLgU.Txt (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\SchedLgU.Txt

Log: Install: setupact.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\setupact.log

Log: Install: setupapi.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\setupapi.log

Log: Shutdown: System32\wbem\logs\mofcomp.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\logs\mofcomp.log

Log: Shutdown: System32\wbem\logs\wbemess.lo_ (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\logs\wbemess.lo_

Log: Shutdown: System32\wbem\logs\wbemess.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\logs\wbemess.log

Log: Shutdown: System32\wbem\logs\winmgmt.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\logs\winmgmt.log

Log: Shutdown: System32\wbem\logs\wmiprov.log (Backup file, nothing done)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\logs\wmiprov.log

Cookie: Cookie (6) (Cookie, nothing done)

— Spybot - Search & Destroy version: 1.3 .1 (build: 20040801) —