Trapped in the Land of Norton

June 5th, 2007, 08:24 PM

I can't unistall Norton AntiVirus 2005. My control panel Install/Unistall of NA2005 pops up a window telling me it needs IE5 or greater, which I uninstalled because it was so virus attractive I had to dump it. Also the program thinks it's running an install, even though the CP knows the package is already installed.

Tech support suggested I try safe mode, but it did the same. Now I decided to let it go until I install a new OP system soon probably Win XP-pro (I have W98 SE).

So stay away from Norton if you can, it's a real hog anyway. You'd think you were running a 486 with 12 meg of memory.

AndyF

June 5th, 2007, 10:17 PM

Andy, I was gonna suggest that you use the Uninstall function on your norton cd instead of add & remove programs But Norton has a set of instruction for you to try at their web site http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...05033108162039
Good luck...............

June 6th, 2007, 07:44 AM

When you get that new OS installed try McAfee security. I had bad experiences with Norton as well. McAfee runs well and seems to catch everything. The only time I got a virus is when I was running Norton.

June 6th, 2007, 08:04 AM

So why not install IE, remove Norton and then dump IE again?

June 6th, 2007, 09:22 AM

I had a problem when I installed it but there is an 'uninstall all norton' utility on their website which removes all references to Norton (aside from the accounting info presumably). Ran it an re-installed with no issues. I run on XP.

June 6th, 2007, 09:32 AM

Norton McAfee or AVG.....None are 100%, Safe surfing along with an anti virus is.....The trouble with all the Antivirus programs except AVG is that they have to may other functions that draw all the resources of your PC. I always use selective install for just the virus definitions and forget the rest of the bells and whistles.....

June 6th, 2007, 11:03 AM

I've used AVG for about ten years now and that system has caught every virus that got near the computer. I don't know why anyone would use anything else. AVG is free and I seem to get at least one update every day, and these updates are fully automatic and they are free as well.

Early on I tried Norton and found it to be an invasive pain in the neck, and an even bigger pain in the neck to get rid of. I eventually formatted the hard drive and started again. AVG free edition is all you need.

June 6th, 2007, 11:27 AM

I found one practical way to test your antivirus no matter which one you are using is by using an online scan once a month.....
It never found any virus that my antivirus had missed, but it found and removed some for friends of mine, and it also scans for spyware..
In case posting the web site is not allowed ...Google "trend micro house call"

June 6th, 2007, 11:49 AM

I'll second Juan's recommendation of AVG. AVG has a small memory footprint, uses a minimal amount of cpu cycles and it catches almost all viruses.

June 6th, 2007, 12:33 PM

My feeling is that if you have a virus, you will know about it. If your computer is running fine, you don't need to scan. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Twice in the last year, I got an alert from AVG that they found a virus and put it in the virus vault. I emptied the vault. Nothing more. Durka Durka is our resident guru. Maybe he has some ideas about these online scanners.

June 6th, 2007, 01:33 PM

Stay away from Norton and Mcafee... they are resource hogs. I have Mcafee installed at work by default and it takes about 5 seconds to open an office document. I don't know what the hell it's doing in those 5 seconds, but it's annoying.

I'm looking at my task manager at the moment and Mcafee has these services running:
11,656K McProxy.exe
18,432K Mcshield.exe
12,748K mcsysmon.exe
1,756K mcpromgr.exe
384K mcods.exe
16,280K McNASvc.exe
1,488K mcmscsvc.exe
6,524K mcagent.exe

for a total of 70 megabytes of memory.

June 6th, 2007, 04:04 PM



Thanks All for the Help !!!



I've heard of AVG as well and will be using that in my new OS.

Andy

June 6th, 2007, 04:11 PM

I personally have never used an online scanner, although one could come in handy if a virus crippled the AV software on your PC.

June 6th, 2007, 06:00 PM

One thing a person can do is to make a disaster recovery disk. I did this a few years ago....it took four floppies. I still have them somewhere....never used them. I was using win95 at the time. I've since gone through Windows 98, and windows 2000. I now have XP. I'm generally pretty careful where I download from and opening e-mails. I've been lazy, and lucky so far.....I'll keep my fingers crossed. I have everything important backed up two ways. If I lost everything and had to format, I could have it back up and running in an hour or so....as long as I didn't get one of those ugly "never get over" viruses that permanently screw up your hard drive.......I've only heard about these...never knew anyone who had one...