My apologies if this has been discussed here already - I did do a search but couldn't find anything (and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack). I have just bought a Sony Vaio laptop which runs Windows 7 Home Premium, and I installed AVG Free Edition 2011.

Are there any known clashes between these two, apart from one I read of recently, where one of AVG 2011's security updates was causing the W7 boot sector to fail. But I haven't had any booting problem. It's getting it to STAY booted: mine crashes unexpectedly. Also I keep getting an AVG error message saying there "may be" an "unknown virus" attached to the Vaio's screensaver.exe and it keeps getting flagged up as a threat. (I don't have the screensaver enabled.)

I can't quarantine whatever It is because it's too big to move to the Virus Vault, which means it's over 5MB in size, though the screensaver itself is quite small (measurable in K) so it seems to be hiding beneath the screensaver. Or something... I don't know...

Apart from "Move To Vault", my other AVG options are to forcibly remove the threat (which AVG isn't even sure IS a virus) but I'm scared to mess with my computer's innards. Or else I can "Ignore" it. About this AVG says: The identified file will remain in its current location on your disk. To ensure you are protected, Resident Shield will not allow you to access files that are affected. So I click Ignore because there are no other choices.

"Show Details" tells me:
Process name: C:\Windows/System\rundll32.exe
Process ID: 3456

This red AVG warning screen pops up from time to time, even when the web is not connected and the ethernet cable is unplugged. And the computer has started crashing, more and more often, and it frequently - but not always - shows me that old-fashioned-looking DOS-style screen, white lettering on blue, from which I re-start (and then do a clean re-boot).

I took it to a computer repair shop, wrote out the problems in detail, they kept it for 2 weeks, said they fixed it, charged me... and now it's happening all over again in exactly the same way. AVG threat still there, crashes, all the same behaviour. They did say they had "reinstalled Windows", but all my files & shortcuts were still there as I'd left them (even the rubbish in the bin).

Of course I'm taking it back tomorrow and will complain, but can any of you enlighten me at all about this problem? Whatever it is, they didn't repair it - or did repair it but it's happened again - and I'd like to be forearmed with a little knowledge so they don't just fob me off with some techno-waffle. I have kept all the updates current, both Micro$oft's and AVG's, browsers & Adobe etc.

Does anyone know anything about this situation? (John in Kansas, ya out there?) Any help or enlightenment will be much appreciated!

Bonnie

PS: Before anyone chips in with "get a Mac" . . . I have one. And I like it fine. But for various programme-related reasons, the work I do means I need to use both systems, on two computers.