>Thank you. Yes, F8 works and I can start the PC in the Safe mode. If I don't figure out why the PC does not restart itself, I will go ahead and try removing the Avast with avastclear.exe in Safe Mode.

I would recommend doing a clean install instead. It is a lot of work, but then you get rid of other 'clutter' too. Also, I would recommend upgrading to Win10 as well.