I'm having trouble with Ad Aware on Windows 7. I ra nit and it took over 10 hours and never finished. I have turned off my screen saver and power down options. Both were hanging it up I thought. Now I notice it gets to "scanning critical areas" and just hangs there. Any suggestions what I can try? I am doing a basic scan.

For updates, check this thread:

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=27435

It hasn't been updated since the Win 7 release, but sounds like the same problem. Oddly, there hasn't been an official word from Lavasoft, but some people reported the problem disappeared after a recent update, so you might try that if you haven't already.

I have 3 systems, an older XP system and 2 VERY fast systems running Vista 32. On my main desktop with a quad core AMD the scan has been running for as of now, 16 hours and is not yet complete. I leave it to your imagination how long it may take to scan my other systems. So far since begining to use the purchased version, I have (in 2 weeks) never been able to complete a scan on any system. The freeware versions I used for years were VERY satisfactory. What went so wrong?

Both stalling problems with Norton and Critical Areas/enumerating clsids are happening on both the free and paid versions. Since you're a paying customer, you should contact Lavasoft Customer Support via the link in my signature. They have both email and chat support. If you get a response or solution, please post back here since we haven't heard any update from Lavasoft since they officially added it to their bug list.