User Acount error, can only log on in safe mode.

Today after downloading and installing Avast Free, i received an error that said "windows has encountered a critical problem. windows will now log off" After that my computer was restarted and i was brought back to the Windows log on screen but even though my account name was there the picture that followed it was default (unlike the one I chose). When I enter my password there it says the user account does no exist, yet all of this works as normal in safe mode. If anyone could give me any ideas to try, it would be greatly appreciated.

CGC said:

Today after downloading and installing Avast Free, i received an error that said "windows has encountered a critical problem. windows will now log off" After that my computer was restarted and i was brought back to the Windows log on screen but even though my account name was there the picture that followed it was default (unlike the one I chose). When I enter my password there it says the user account does no exist, yet all of this works as normal in safe mode. If anyone could give me any ideas to try, it would be greatly appreciated.

Did you create a restore point? If so, restore to it. If not, try uninstalling Avast using their utility;

avast! Uninstall Utility | Download aswClear for avast! Removal

HTH

I did try to restore but every restore point I tried didn't complete and I received a message saying that the error was undefined. I also tried scanning for malware and found 1 infected file. Could malware have been the issue? Im convinced that the best solution would be to back-up my programs and files to an external hard drive and restoring to factory default.

I deleted Avast and everything works fine now. Thanks for the advice. It seems that Avast can tend to disrupt windows by trying to scan behind it.