From my very unhappy and time consuming efforts to get help from Norton...I
certainly wish you much more luck than I have received from their help and
support. And certainly this is IMHO just my thoughts and in no way am I
trying to trash Norton for I until recently had every software program that
they produced at one time or the other. If you get your problems worked out
which i sincerely hope you do, here is my two cents worth on what I believe
to be a very unstable and not friendly piece of software. Yes there are many
that have been running Norton Products for years with no know issues. But
with every new update to windows, with many new third party vendors software
you may install in the future you may run into other problems. In the past
two weeks I have been posted to this group mainly re: an issue where I was
no longer able to access any secure web site. On first contacting Norton, i
got the same reply as in the past, it was a windows issue or a bug in the
Microsoft latest two new security updates : Q823980 and Q821557. With no
help from Norton, even paid support. I then went to Gateway. For 35.00 and
two hours of talking with a very young inexperienced tech, the solution was
the usual one. Put in the recovery disks and return the machine to its
original factory settings. I would and will never do that again. Did it once
many years ago with the loss of way to much data for I did not have a clue
as to what or how to do a complete backup. Then seemingly at my wits end, I
got help from a very wonderful MVP on this post and was able to fix my
problem. He gave me wealth of helpful information. But his first suggestion
was to uninstall ( and yes he even gave me the option of trying to reinstall
later) so he is not what you would call a Norton advocate, but neither did
he say anything negative about them. As for me, because of their lack of
support and blaming every issue on Microsoft I will. Below is a copy of
what I went through and how he helped me. Even after following all his
advice which took me two days. His first suggestion to uninstall ALL NORTON
PRODUCTS, was indeed the right one...for once again I am up and running ,
with new anti-virus and firewall protection and none of the many headaches I
had before.
On the side of Norton, if you can move your case up to the managerial level
you will find you can acquire from the knowledge base or from them directly
some "work a rounds", so I wish you well in your search for help. They are
one good virus catcher and remover, it is just my opinion they do "not play
fair" within the windows environment.
copy of email to follow:
Hi Jim
Want to express my deep appreciation for the help you gave me! After
following all the steps you suggested in
http://support.Microsoft.com/?kbid=813444 I still was not able to open any
secure web sites. That left me with no Gateway support(theirs is online
secure also) so spent 35.00 with Gateway to have one of their very
inexperience techs tell me that the only solution was to put in the recovery
disk and return to pre-set factory settings. See Norton comes as part of
their OEM software package even though I was not using their version but had
upgraded online at Norton to Norton Professional Edition 2003. Of course I
can not reach Norton to get a url where to retrieve the paid for software
that I downloaded with a credit card and when I wrote for support they as
usual said it was the fault of Microsoft because of the latest two security
updates within windows updater! THEY WERE WRONG!
I started uninstall of all Norton Products. These are some things that might
prove helpful for others when they run into the issues I had.
When removing all Norton Products there are some like <reg update> and <live
update> that cannot be removed until Norton Personal Professional Firewall
is removed first. I found this out for after each uninstall of any Norton
product (I would suggest making a restore point for each one)I would try to
see if I could view secure web pages and was still unable. Also even as a
novice I think it best to reboot between each uninstall. After finally
having to go into windows explorer and deleting all files (except shared
..dlls) belonging to Norton and doing one last shut down and restart.
Amazing! My problem was solved. Yes I may have been able to save myself a
lot of problems if I had just did what you told me and deleted all Norton
Products but in all honesty I was leery for I have never had a virus that
made it to my hardrive thanks I suppose to Norton , but the hassle of having
it was not worth the protection it surely did provide me.
But NO MORE, I now have ZA Pro and ezTrust Antivirus, AVG antivirus and
webroot spy sweeper. There was a slight problem at first with the install of
ezTrust for until I disabled ZA Pro for a moment it would not let me
download from the .ftp site. But now they both seem to be doing fine, surely
need some fine tuning on my part, but at the end of this 2 week nightmare
thanks to you and Microsoft I feel I am on the right path. I feel protected
as much as I was before without Norton and certainly have no more email
problems such as all the errors I used to get in Outlook 2002 and now can at
least have access to all secure web sites.
Once again, Much Thanks for all of your very professional and timely help. I
owe you one big time, so the next time your in the area of eastern shore of
Maryland , let me know and I will treat you to some of the greatest seafood
available in the world. Regards
Gene Murphy
