[Nix]

I used to like CA, but they're turning into Norton with thier new integrated suite of tools.  Although if you'd like to try you can get a free year at
www.my-etrust.com/microsoft
lol, they charge what, 30 bucks for it.  You'll need a valid email address to recieve the year-long license key.

[Nuke]

Course some spyware can hide under legit names.

it can, but then what its hiding under wont work

[Gortef]

I use Avast aswell, and I have been really pleased with it.

[perihelion]

is it possible your friend tried to pirate the full version?

Most likely he/she did it completely wrong ( runs away).

   The thought had occurred, especially since I know the man to be a flagrant pirate of everything under the sun.  If his system wasn't clean when he tried to install the upgrade, all bets are off.  I do not remember him saying whether or not he uninstalled the old version before installing the new.  PC-Cillin automated that process pretty well in previous versions.  I wonder if that's the problem now.  Maybe they botched the automation a bit and now you absolutely must remove the old version first?

[Shadow0000]

I used to have the AVG Professional v7.0 , which can be downloaded in the official page as a 30 day trial, I can't remember if the program self update without asking me, or I just simply hit the button for internet update, but it's now updated to v7.5, and so far there aren't any problems.

PS: It's seems that AVG also detects Adware, and probabily Spyware, though I also use both Spybot and Ad-Aware.

[Nuke]

is it possible your friend tried to pirate the full version?

Most likely he/she did it completely wrong ( runs away).

   The thought had occurred, especially since I know the man to be a flagrant pirate of everything under the sun.  If his system wasn't clean when he tried to install the upgrade, all bets are off.  I do not remember him saying whether or not he uninstalled the old version before installing the new.  PC-Cillin automated that process pretty well in previous versions.  I wonder if that's the problem now.  Maybe they botched the automation a bit and now you absolutely must remove the old version first?

it seemed like the 7.5 installer supported installing over the old version, but it also seems like windows does not
either way its better to remove the old version and reboot before installing the new one.

[Flipside]

AVG here, I just got totally pissed off at McAfee 'helpfully' updating even after you'd switched it off, usually minimising the current window (thus usally crashing the program if it's a game) to tell you how helpful it's being...

It also had a nasty habit of dropping Internet after it had updated.