SystemWorks 2003 Pro expiring. Is 2004 or 2005 worth it, or worse?

[Thomas G. Marshall]

I currently have Norton SystemWorks 2003 Pro, and in a month or so, it'll be
kaput.

I would normally opt for a newer version, but am confused by a couple of
things, and wonder if I shouldn't just "renew" the subscription.

I read here and there that the later versions of NAV (2004 + 2005) *hog* the
system bandwidth like never before. Have you found this to be true? Is it
*much* worse than the 2003 I currently have?

 

[Peacekeeper]

All i can say is
1 have 2005 and its Goback and ghost 9 versions have saved me many times
from bad installs etc

2. have 2004 here at work non Pro version and 2005 pro at home and I haven't
noticed any issues re hogging though i have seen posts of such around the
traps.

Tony

 

[* * Chas]

"Thomas G. Marshall"

I currently have Norton SystemWorks 2003 Pro, and in a month or so, it'll be
kaput.

I would normally opt for a newer version, but am confused by a couple of
things, and wonder if I shouldn't just "renew" the subscription.

I read here and there that the later versions of NAV (2004 + 2005) *hog* the
system bandwidth like never before. Have you found this to be true? Is it
*much* worse than the 2003 I currently have?

Each release of Symantec products become more porcine. I'm still
running SW 2000 on one system. Since I only use about 4 features I
switched to Norton Utilities instead (no AV or firewall). I had
problems with later versions of NU so I'm running NU 2001.

I would recommend getting separate components for your AV and firewall
needs. There are a lot of very good less expensive (some even free)
programs like NOD32, F-Prot, AVG and so on for AV protection, Kerio
and Zone Alarm firewalls, AdAware and SpyBot for spyware and so on.

I got tired of Norton D/L massive product registration verification
updates (LiveReg) every few months. Not only did they waste time D/L
and installing, each one was more of a resource hog than the previous
version, and only served to check that my software was legit.

Chas.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

* * Chas coughed up:

....[rip]...

I got tired of Norton D/L massive product registration verification
updates (LiveReg) every few months. Not only did they waste time D/L
and installing, each one was more of a resource hog than the previous
version, and only served to check that my software was legit.

I'm curious. How on earth would they know if, say, an oem version was on
more than one machine behind someone's firewall? The CD's are not
individually coded, nor do you have to enter a serial number stamped on a
sleeve or box.

 

[jonah]

* * Chas coughed up:

...[rip]...

I got tired of Norton D/L massive product registration verification
updates (LiveReg) every few months. Not only did they waste time D/L
and installing, each one was more of a resource hog than the previous
version, and only served to check that my software was legit.

I'm curious. How on earth would they know if, say, an oem version was on
more than one machine behind someone's firewall? The CD's are not
individually coded, nor do you have to enter a serial number stamped on a
sleeve or box.

They only check the subscription date AFAIK. When you remove /
re-install Norton 2003 you used to get another new subscription. Maybe
they fixed that bug now (it will be about the only thing Norton ever
did properly if they did). Get another AV and Firewall, far less
trouble than NIS 2005.

Jonah

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

jonah coughed up:

* * Chas coughed up:

...[rip]...

I got tired of Norton D/L massive product registration verification
updates (LiveReg) every few months. Not only did they waste time D/L
and installing, each one was more of a resource hog than the
previous version, and only served to check that my software was
legit.

I'm curious. How on earth would they know if, say, an oem version
was on more than one machine behind someone's firewall? The CD's
are not individually coded, nor do you have to enter a serial number
stamped on a sleeve or box.

They only check the subscription date AFAIK. When you remove /
re-install Norton 2003 you used to get another new subscription.

Something crashed within NSW 2003 and I reinstalled everything to get it
stable again. IIRC it did not reset to a new subscription.

Maybe
they fixed that bug now (it will be about the only thing Norton ever
did properly if they did). Get another AV and Firewall, far less
trouble than NIS 2005.

Jonah

 

[* * Chas]

"Thomas G. Marshall"

* * Chas coughed up:

...[rip]...

I got tired of Norton D/L massive product registration verification
updates (LiveReg) every few months. Not only did they waste time D/L
and installing, each one was more of a resource hog than the previous
version, and only served to check that my software was legit.

I'm curious. How on earth would they know if, say, an oem version was on
more than one machine behind someone's firewall? The CD's are not
individually coded, nor do you have to enter a serial number stamped on a
sleeve or box.

I've used just about every version of NAV from 1995 up through 2002 -
tried 2003 and 2004 but went back to 2002. I don't run Norton any more
so I can't give you the details.

LiveReg is the module used to register Symantec updateable programs
and to check on their subscription date. It's so big relative to what
it does that it has an entry in Control Panel/Add-Remove applet. There
is a second DRM applet that appeared in NAV 2003 that does the same
thing and runs in the background. It's a very poor, complicated method
to check subscriptions. That's why I went back to NAV 2002 on the one
system I was still running NAV.

Chas.

 

[* * Chas]

"Thomas G. Marshall"

Something crashed within NSW 2003 and I reinstalled everything to get it
stable again. IIRC it did not reset to a new subscription.

NAV leaves remnants all over after an uninstall. You need to remove
the Norton Antivirus folder and it's contents from C:\Program Files,
also look for the Symantec folder or folders in the Application Data
folder or folders, remove the Norton AntiVirus Folders. Find a folder
LiveSubscribe probably in All Users and remove the
Catalog.LiveSuscribe file. Search for a file Navwnt.mif and delete it.

After this you should be able to reinstall and start from zero.

Chas.

 

[Virus Guy]

LiveReg is the module used to register Symantec updateable
programs and to check on their subscription date.

Up until some point in 2003, I was in the habbit of NOT selecting the
LR component when manually updating NSW 2001 on a couple of NT-Server
boxes. Maybe it was a quirk or something, but I found that the LR
component update was cancelling the subscription when re-installing
NSW 2001 (yes I deleted all traces of Norton/Symantec files and reg
entries before each re-install). This phenomena disapeared (or went
away) so it stopped being an issue.

That's why I went back to NAV 2002 on the one system I was
still running NAV.

I also found that NSW/NAV 2003 was a bear (or dog, or hog) and kept
using 2002 on most of our PC's. Just keep re-installing once a year.
Works like a charm.

Looks like Symantec has been putting more effort into tracking
individual installations of their AV products than in actually
changing the detection engines. That must be the real changes in each
version from year to year. When updated with the same (current) def
file, I don't think there's any difference between any version of NAV
(ie 2001-2005) at being able to detect this or that virus.

Maybe the more recent versions have to deal with the bloated and
over-managed OS's like XP or server 2003 (and the way those os's hide
and protect files) but for NT or Win-98 or 2K I don't see any point in
moving from NAV 2001/2002 to NAV 2003-2005.

 

[Buffalo]

"Thomas G. Marshall"


NAV leaves remnants all over after an uninstall. You need to remove
the Norton Antivirus folder and it's contents from C:\Program Files,
also look for the Symantec folder or folders in the Application Data
folder or folders, remove the Norton AntiVirus Folders. Find a folder
LiveSubscribe probably in All Users and remove the
Catalog.LiveSuscribe file. Search for a file Navwnt.mif and delete it.

After this you should be able to reinstall and start from zero.

Chas.

I use NSW2003Pro and I cannot find any .mif files in NSW or related to NSW.
I did find one .mif file in SiSoftSandra which was not related to NSW.

 

[* * Chas]

Up until some point in 2003, I was in the habbit of NOT selecting the
LR component when manually updating NSW 2001 on a couple of NT-Server
boxes. Maybe it was a quirk or something, but I found that the LR
component update was cancelling the subscription when re-installing
NSW 2001 (yes I deleted all traces of Norton/Symantec files and reg
entries before each re-install). This phenomena disapeared (or went
away) so it stopped being an issue.


I also found that NSW/NAV 2003 was a bear (or dog, or hog) and kept
using 2002 on most of our PC's. Just keep re-installing once a year.
Works like a charm.

2003 & up: SOOOEEE! SOOOEEE! Pig, pig, pig.....

Looks like Symantec has been putting more effort into tracking
individual installations of their AV products than in actually
changing the detection engines. That must be the real changes in each
version from year to year. When updated with the same (current) def
file, I don't think there's any difference between any version of NAV
(ie 2001-2005) at being able to detect this or that virus.

I agree. I use a free program from PC Magazine called InCtrl (versions
4 & 5) to monitor any changes I make to my systems. It seemed that NAV
had been continuosly updating the engine and other critical files in
NAV 2002 and later versions.

I let my subscription run out on the last PC that I had NAV installed
on after I found that NOD32 would give me the same kind of E-Mail
protection that I was using NAV for. It seemed that Live Update was
putting more slugware additions in with every update! They put in a
few things in the updates that caused me to get rid of NAV 2003!

Maybe the more recent versions have to deal with the bloated and
over-managed OS's like XP or server 2003 (and the way those os's hide
and protect files) but for NT or Win-98 or 2K I don't see any point in
moving from NAV 2001/2002 to NAV 2003-2005.

The NT version of NAV is quite different from the one used with
Win98/ME.

One of the biggest jokes and bloatware is Norton Recovery, hundreds of
megs of wasted space. I tried it once when one of my systems got hit
with an web attack. Restore from a 100MB Zip drive!!!

Chas.

 

[* * Chas]

I use NSW2003Pro and I cannot find any .mif files in NSW or related to NSW.
I did find one .mif file in SiSoftSandra which was not related to NSW.

Navwnt.mif gets installed in the Windows folder when NAV is
uninstalled. It's been that way since Norton 5.0 IIRC.

For the $14.95, then $24.95 and now $29.95 for subscription renewal it
wasn't worth the time and trouble to do the uninstall/reinstall
routine.

I've had to use the total uninstall/reinstall method a number of times
when for example, an update or upgrade got hosed which used to happen
a lot with NAV.

I bought a stack of legal copies of NAV 2002 for $10.00 each in 2003.
later, I bought copies of NAV 2003 direct from Symantec online. They
were selling for $24.95 with a free copy of Norton Utilities 2002.
After numerous problems with 2003, I went back to 2002.

In the mid 90's Norton (and McAfee) advertised lifetime updates!

Chas.

 

[Buffalo]

Navwnt.mif gets installed in the Windows folder when NAV is
uninstalled. It's been that way since Norton 5.0 IIRC.

For the $14.95, then $24.95 and now $29.95 for subscription renewal it
wasn't worth the time and trouble to do the uninstall/reinstall
routine.

I've had to use the total uninstall/reinstall method a number of times
when for example, an update or upgrade got hosed which used to happen
a lot with NAV.

I bought a stack of legal copies of NAV 2002 for $10.00 each in 2003.
later, I bought copies of NAV 2003 direct from Symantec online. They
were selling for $24.95 with a free copy of Norton Utilities 2002.
After numerous problems with 2003, I went back to 2002.

In the mid 90's Norton (and McAfee) advertised lifetime updates!

Chas.

Thanks for the information.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

* * Chas coughed up:

* * Chas wrote:

....[rip]...

I also found that NSW/NAV 2003 was a bear (or dog, or hog) and kept
using 2002 on most of our PC's. Just keep re-installing once a year.
Works like a charm.

2003 & up: SOOOEEE! SOOOEEE! Pig, pig, pig.....

Is 2004 or 2005 /worse/ than 2003?

I agree. I use a free program from PC Magazine called InCtrl (versions
4 & 5) to monitor any changes I make to my systems. It seemed that NAV
had been continuosly updating the engine and other critical files in
NAV 2002 and later versions.

I let my subscription run out on the last PC that I had NAV installed
on after I found that NOD32

I've found that people seem fairly happy with the footprint and ability of
NOD32. I've also read interesting stuff about Kapersky. Do you have an
opinion about NOD32 vs. KAV?

would give me the same kind of E-Mail
protection that I was using NAV for. It seemed that Live Update was
putting more slugware additions in with every update! They put in a
few things in the updates that caused me to get rid of NAV 2003!


The NT version of NAV is quite different from the one used with
Win98/ME.

One of the biggest jokes and bloatware is Norton Recovery, hundreds of
megs of wasted space. I tried it once when one of my systems got hit
with an web attack. Restore from a 100MB Zip drive!!!

Quite frankly, I don't yet trust /much/ of norton to do the job right. It
seems a little sketchy to me. Being a software engineer for over 20 years,
I've learned to not trust something that likes to put itself too much
between me and the machine--I'm far too afraid of it munging the
installation db of XP in an irrevocable manner.

 

[* * Chas]

"Thomas G. Marshall"

* * Chas coughed up:

Is 2004 or 2005 /worse/ than 2003?

NAV 2003 was pretty buggy AFAIWC and a major resource hog compared to
earlier versions. I don't think that they added to much to the later
versions except increase the value of pork bellies! ;-)

I've found that people seem fairly happy with the footprint and ability of
NOD32. I've also read interesting stuff about Kapersky. Do you have an
opinion about NOD32 vs. KAV?

I used NAV for many years but mostly as a backup AV on-demand scanner.
In 1995 two weeks after the announcement of the first MS Word macro
viruses, I had 2 of them. I was running NAV and McAfee. At that point
I switched Dr. Solomons and used it to the bitter end - I still have
it on one system and I used to find and old piece of malware that I
contracted that updated programs didn't monitor for!

I've been extremely pleased with NOD32's performance and speed of
updates, it's impressive compared to NAV, McAfee and some others.

I run at least 2 AV programs at all times - one as a full time scanner
and a second on-demand scanner. I'm using F-Prot as my second scanner.

I haven't tried KAV for a few years so I can't really say much. It has
a good reputation but some version updates have been buggy.

Quite frankly, I don't yet trust /much/ of norton to do the job right. It
seems a little sketchy to me. Being a software engineer for over 20 years,
I've learned to not trust something that likes to put itself too much
between me and the machine--I'm far too afraid of it munging the
installation db of XP in an irrevocable manner.

I only have XP on 2 laptops that I don't use very much so I'm not an
expert on the subject but XP integrates 3rd party AV programs too
deeply into it's system for my comfort. I like to have a handle on
what's happening with my PCs.

Chas.