Computer Problem

[Broompilot]

I had Norton Security Protection on my computer. It has completely dissabled my brand new Dell. Just a warning to anyone who has or is considering this program from protecting your computer. DONT this is why I have not been on for the last month. NO COMPUTER on the road THANKS TO NORTON.. Its junk two experts have both given me the same advice get your original discs, and start completely over.

So if your reading this dont do what I have done never ever put this companies software on your computer as it will shut it down, with no support or phone #s to help you get back on. It has blocked every program except for Streets and Maps and will not allow me to get on the internet.

 

[ATeam]

Just because it happened to you, it does not mean it will happen to everyone else. Norton is a fine company with a fine product. I just upgraded my Norton products with no trouble at all.

It sounds like you had a bad install. That can happen for a variety of reasons, including a power surge, operator error, or program defect (not likely off a Norton CD, but entirely possible with Windows.....don't get me started). A bad install is no big deal if you have your data backed up. Worse case is it will take some time to rebuild your hard drive.

Word to the wise: Configure your computer to have two drives (generally one physical hard drive that is configured into two logical drives). Put your program files (like Norton, Word, mapping software, Excel, etc.) on your boot drive (generally the C drive), and your data files (like your business spreadsheets, letters you write, posts you save from EO, etc.) on the other drive.

That way, if the computer operating system and/or programs stop working, you can rebuild the C drive from your program CDs and retrive your data from the other drive.

Of course, it is essential to back up your data files in a location other where the computer is kept. If you don't and if your physical hard drive crashes, or your computer is stolen, or burns up with the truck, or whatever; you can go to your backup files and install your data onto the replacement computer.

DO NOT keep your backup files in the same house or truck where you keep your computer.

My backup technique is to use a flash memory stick in the USB port. Every now and then, I copy my data files to it and mail the stick home. Someone there then sends me a second stick to keep with me and use in the truck.

When I'm out of the truck, I wear the stick around my neck. Or, if I take the computer out of the truck, the stick stays in the truck. If the truck burns or is stolen along with the computer, I can be back in business in the time it takes me to buy another computer. If for some reason the stick and computer are both destroyed (like I forgot to take the stick with me out of the truck and the truck was stolen, or I had to flee a burning building when I had the stick in the computer to do a backup), I can be back in business as soon as I can buy a new computer and FedEx can overnight the stick from home.

If you back up your data, computer problems are a tiny fraction of the trouble they would otherwise be. ALWAYS back up your data.

An alternative to the above drive strategy is to simply keep all your data in the Windows "My Documents" folder. Create sub-folders WITHIN the "My Documents" folder to organize your stuff in the way you want it. To back up your data, copy the entire "My Documents" folder onto the flash memory stick.

 

[geo]

couple of weeks ago had the same problem what happen aol did update and nortons did at the same time and we had a problem for a week and aol called us and walk us thru the system and we are back up and running

 

[LDB]

I was looking at new computers a few weeks ago. One of them had dual 100gb hard drives. I commented to the salesman that was cool and you could mirror your C drive on the second drive and be back in business in a few seconds if you had a drive failure. He got a blank look for a moment and then the light came on and he said he hadn't ever thought of that. You would still need an external backup of important files but that would eliminate loss due to a drive failure.

Leo Bricker, owner trucks 3034, 4958
OOIDA 677319
73's K5LDB
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
----------
Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

 

[greg334]

Well Phil, I sort of agree with you, but Norton has a bad reputation in the IT world and problems are not the fault of the user but rather Norton. I won’t go into detail here, it will be a waste of time but I will say that Windows XP lacks the consistency in driver development and program development unlike Mac and other UNIX based operating systems and most of the time the conflict with Norton is caused by different drivers - believe it or not.

With that said I do agree with you on the partitioned drive but the problem is in order to do this properly, you have to start with a fresh drive and install it right from the beginning. Using programs that resize drives on the fly can be a big problem when you try to reinstall an operating system; some rewrite the allocation data on the drive while I have seen a bunch of IBM drives get their firmware changed – rare but true. But taking precautions when you install programs like using windows XP system recovery program is a prudent thing to do anyway.

The idea of a memory stick, which is rather cheap, is a great idea but watch out for x-rays, for some reason when we tested a lot of them, a bunch of the cheap ones failed when going through the x-ray machine (very low levels of radiation). Now if you really want to radiation hardened memory sticks for about $5000 each, great if you are worried about pulse emissions.

Oh don’t forget to encrypt the info too when it is out of your hands.

 

[DocRushing]

Broomer:
I truly empathize with you about the computer problem.
I've used Norton since October 2003.
Previously I used McAfee.
I've felt very pleased with Norton.
I've also felt that Norton probably had done for me better than McAfee.
Unfortunately, different users sometimes get different results.
Again, I'm very sorry about your hassles.
I hope it all comes back together for you.
Best wishes,
Doc.

 

[cheri1122]

Thanks, Broom, for the heads-up, and ATeam for elaborating on the possible causes. I have Norton Security 05 on my desktop, (SpySweeper on the laptop), & the problem I have with Norton is the parental control function. It occasionally refuses to allow me to access perfectly innocent information, (two days ago, it blocked the address of a doctor on my preferred provider site!) & when I want to report it as inaccurately categorized, the instructions are unclear as to whether the list is for sites that should be accessible, or sites that should not be - so I don't ever get it solved. Disabling the parental controls is not an option, because the file sharing site I download music from also contains porn, which I can ignore, (just reading some of the titles made me ill), but my 16 year old daughter uses my computer to download music for her iPod, too. Any advice on the problem would be greatly appreciated, all you wizards, & thanks. Cheri

 

[ATeam]

>Well Phil, I sort of agree with you, but Norton has a bad
>reputation in the IT world and problems are not the fault of
>the user but rather Norton.

Your IT credentials are superior to mine, but I too was in the IT world for a few years. For end users on non-networked or home-networked machines, Norton is as fine a product as I know. In corporate network settings where you are running multiple servers and perhaps thousands of units I can easily believe network administrators had frustrations with Norton.

 

[Moot]

I also have a problem with Norton's parental control feature. It occasionally blocks weather.com. At least it allows me access to lotlizzardsgonewild.com. Other than that I'm satisfied.

 

[davekc]

What we did is buy the Norton from the computer fix (geek squad) in best buy. They use a different program than the retail ones. Installed and working well on four different systems.. Maybe that will help someone.
Also...it is a cheaper purchase price. $21.00 if I remember correctly?




Davekc
owner
21 years
PantherII
EO moderator

 

[greg334]

>Your IT credentials are superior to mine, but I too was in
>the IT world for a few years. For end users on non-networked
>or home-networked machines, Norton is as fine a product as I
>know. In corporate network settings where you are running
>multiple servers and perhaps thousands of units I can easily
>believe network administrators had frustrations with Norton.

Thank you, I also did a lot of onsite consumer problems work for a long time and worked with Symantec on two important issues with Windows XP for a number of people (senior citizens) who had simular problems. Even they admit to some of these problems I mentioned and blame Windows XP, which also Microsoft admitted to a device driver problem.

Norton is a good product, as is MacAfee, F-Secure, Sophos, Trend Micro, Solomon, etc.. but there is issues with each and every one of these programs because of the base operating system. as for enterprise sites, almost all of the networks I worked on used MacAfee and Norton Ghost to duplicate the machines.

Which brings up another point, if you know anything about Norton Ghost, you should try it to restore a computer.

Oh yea I don't do the consumer thing anymore, it is a pain - my father is the most I can handle now a days and I wish he would get a Mac.

Just to suggest it again, when working with Windows XP, set a restore point in case you have problems.

 

[Jack Jackson]

We used Norton until it started giving us problems.

An IT friend suggested AVAST which is free to non-commercial users.
Downloaded it off the internet site and have not had any problems since.
It also updates itself everytime you log on to the internet.

 

[unorthodoxneon]

I was part of a BETA team that helped with the new nortons, and it was full of bugs and stuff then. I just got rid of it and said i wasnt going to help anymore cause the program was full of problems.

 

[outwardbound 2]

Sorry to hear about your prob with nortons. It is a fine program and like any other program it some times doesn't play well with others, but it is better to have any type of virus protection then none. Setting a restore point is a great way to help against problems in the future.
This can be done by going to "Start" , "all programs", "accessories", "systems tools", "systems restore" From there you can create a restore point when your system works fine.
then if you ever have this problem again after loading anything you can start your computer in safe mode and go back to that point.

After 20 years in the IT industry in both field service and as an admin and 2 degrees in the field A.A.S., M.A. I'm glad to be driving a truck. But i still run in too id10t errors

 

[Broompilot]

Yeah well Phil I am sure the day will come when it screws you to. As others have posted to back up my claim. I went to two Professional Computer Stores, the first one in Muskegon, at least got me to where I could at least browse the internet. His suggestion get rid of Norton, second one here in Charlotte, had the same believe get rid of their system, when something goes wrong it locks computers up tight.

Wife spent the entire day yesterday freeing this up, removing the junk from Norton installing another (with ease) and getting our $ back from Norton. So Phil your professional knowlege on computers is deeper than the two full time people who helped fix the problem?

All I was trying to do was to alert members here of the PROBLEM I faced with this company and obviously others have had the same expierence. The indepth of my lap top only consists of four files, Microsoft Streets and maps, Windows, and the Truckers Helper, had one other but let it expire. I keep no personal info what so ever. To much headache with the Norton Product to continue.

 

[phatTweaker]

Norton AV is a huge resource hog as is most of the other Symantec bloatware products. The only Symantec program that I find remotely worth using is Ghost 8.0.

Here's my tried and true recipe for a secure PC.
Starting with a brand new or heavily used PC doesn't matter I always do a 3 pass DoD killdisk then partition and format the hard drive and install the Operating System, update drivers, install windows security patches, etc. A simple format does NOT always remove virii and other malware that is why I use a DoD grade 3 pass wipe. It insures that the drive(s) are clean.

Ok once the PC is back up and running I install the following free programs. AVG anti virus free edition, zonealarm free addition, spybot search and destroy 1.4 (but I don't enable teatimer or SDhelper because they tend to crash explorer), ad-aware, spywareblaster, and spywareguard.
On WindowsXP PCs I go into the services and disable Messenger service, and all of the remote PC related services. Some of these services are disabled by default if using SP2, but I have found SP2 will degrade performance by about 10-15%, so I use SP1a.
Another program I like to use is called Customizer XP. It lets me tweak allot of system settings for best performance and chose which programs I want to start when booting up.
I also do not use Internet Explorer. Instead I use Firefox.

The last thing I do is run TweakNow RegCleaner to remove all the useless junk form windows registry.

Since I have trial and error'd my way to using this group of programs I have had zero problems with spyware, virii, popups, etc. I use these same programs on all the PCs I build for clients, family and friends and they too have very few problems.

Just remember no matter how good or many security programs u use u still gotta be careful what you click on or what email attachments u chose to open.


Sorry for being so long winded, but I love talking geek.

 

[ATeam]

>Yeah well Phil I am sure the day will come when it screws
>you to. As others have posted to back up my claim. I went
>to two Professional Computer Stores, the first one in
>Muskegon, at least got me to where I could at least browse
>the internet. His suggestion get rid of Norton, second one
>here in Charlotte, had the same believe get rid of their
>system, when something goes wrong it locks computers up
>tight.
>
>Wife spent the entire day yesterday freeing this up,
>removing the junk from Norton installing another (with ease)
>and getting our $ back from Norton. So Phil your
>professional knowlege on computers is deeper than the two
>full time people who helped fix the problem?

It may well be. I was in the industry for several years. One gig I did was teach certification classes to people who work behind the counters you speak of. I do not know the qualifications of the people you consulted or their skills. I do know that had I been in front of your computer with the problems (or "issues" as they say in IT), computer, and software you described, I would have had you up and running again in three hours max. Had you called me, I could have talked you through the process free of charge.

Kraig, my goodness. Why get so hot headed? If you are going to cite other people who have had problems with Norton, should you not also cite the MILLIONS of satisfied users Norton also has? We're talking about software, not religion or politics. Every anti-virus product out there can crash a computer if circumstances are right (wrong), and it's probably a safe bet that all have in one case or another.

If it is true, as you say, that Norton will screw me too, it won't be a crisis and it certainly won't take me off line for more than a few minutes, let alone a month (we keep two functioning computers in the truck....got tired of fighting over who gets to use the laptop).

The fact is, computers of all kinds and the software (all brands) that drive them are not reliable. Whether the computers contain personal data or not, wise people expect computers to crash and prepare for it.

 

[ATeam]

>Sorry for being so long winded, but I love talking geek.

I enjoyed it! Good approach. Mine is different in that resource use does not trouble me. The cost of storage and memory has fallen so much and speeds increased so much that I'm OK with piggy products on my machine. I'm no longer interested in pouring the time into them to produce the financially and technically elegant solutions you have. I especially like your DoD wipes. If I was building or rebuilding a drive, I'd do that too.

That's you, phatTweaker: The Financially and Technically Elegant One!

Me? I'm just a truck driver whose interest in computers declines by the day.

 

[ATeam]

>After 20 years in the IT industry in both field service and
>as an admin and 2 degrees in the field A.A.S., M.A. I'm glad
>to be driving a truck.

Information Technology...the answer to America's truck driver shortage!

 

[highway star]

There's a saying that if it has wheels or thermal vascular milk modules it's gonna give you problems. I think we can throw computers in with that group. Techies like Phatweaker, Greg, and Ateam must have the same problem doctors have going to a party. "Hey Doc, my hard drive hurts when I do this."