I have been having this periodic problem with Norton Antivirus 2005 when I start the computer or loaded a word document windows would appear like a program was trying to load. I thought it was spyware or something. Turns out it is a bug in Norton Antivirus 2005 and here is what I found.
I was getting the message in a popup dialog box that said. “Norton Antivirus 2005 does not support repair feature reinstall Norton” , so I do that and the problem goes away.
Then a couple of days later it pops up again. I go to the Symantec support site and here is the solution to the issue and I am red in the face.
This message can happen if you have changed the default location for the Norton AntiVirus shortcuts in the Windows Start Menu. The default locations of the shortcuts are:
In Norton AntiVirus installed as part of Norton SystemWorks:
\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Norton SystemWorks\Norton AntiVirus
\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Norton SystemWorks Premier\Norton AntiVirus
Here is what that all means you are forced to have it on the main Program line. What a bunch of idiots. I like my program bar nice and organized no sole program gets to be on the main program line everything is in neat categories..
It has been a while since I tried a Mcafee product where is my credit card anyway.
Here’s my recent experience with Norton 2005. I down loaded a free test program of Norton 2005. It seemed to work fine, on catching viruses and always asked my approval on load potentially harmful stuff, etc. But it caused certain big-time slowdowns of my computer. It would appear to scan files it did not need to scan. And sometimes it caused massive reading or writing on the hard disk with apparently using very little processor time. This really brought my computer to a temporary halt sometimes until it finished whatever it was doing.
When I figured out that it was the Norton 2005 that was doing this, I elected to un-install the program. I followed the directions and used Windows Control Panel Add & Remove Programs to uninstall the program. During the un-install procedure it deleted the Virus Scan part of the Norton 2004 which had been in use on my computer before all this started. Norton/Symantec refused to assist me in fixing the program. I was there program and procedures that caused the deletion, after all. They refered me to my “System Vendor” to get a replacement program. My system vendos is IBM I guess (I use a ThinkPad) which has over 300,000 employees. I wonder how I woud ever find the one employee in IBM who sould be able to help me. And during this process I would be without Virus protection.
I did take out my credit card and headed for my local office supply store and picked up a copy of the McAfee Virusscan. It installed just fine, and on my first scan found 19 hits in zip files that the Norton never did find.
I think I have just become a loyal McAfee user.
Relax and put away the credit card. There’s a simple work-around that will leave your Program bar as sleek and clean as you’d like it. First, make a copy of the shortcut to Norton AntiVirus and move it to your desired location. Next, hide the problem folder by right-clicking on it, choosing Properties, and then clicking on Hidden in the Attributes section. That should resolve your problem. Good luck!
Come on people please wake up, Just because Norton and McAffee the most well known pieces of antivirus software doesn’t make them the best. I work on 1000s of computers and when Norton of McAfee are on the machine the users have nothing but problems. If you are lucky the worst behavior is what is described above.
There are multuple other AV vendors with very reliable prodcuts that run well without messing up your computer.
Some that come to mind are –
Kaspersky’s Antivirus
GriSoft’s AVG
FreeAV AntiVir
Panda ActiveScan
Please do yourself a favor and try out the trial versions of these packages and see what I mean. I’ve perosnally had to clean up multiple virus infections that got right past Norton even using their latest virus signatures using these other vendors solutions.
Bigger is not always better.
I use AVG 7.0 pro as my antivirus after having to clean several machines with Norton AV installed.
I also have a friend who sells NOD32, http://AlaskaJoe.com/NOD32 , and I know many people who are very, very impressed with NOD32, cause of the frequent updates, and low resource usage. Good luck!