Norton Antivirus 2004

Rating:
Summary: 2004 has problems
Review: I agree with the above. I've used Norton for eight years with little trouble. Instead of upgrading I made the mistake of starting with 2004 afresh. Big mistake. For a start, I bought it as a bundle (Anti Virus and Firewall, both of which I've used for years) and downloaded it. Worked fine for two weeks then decided it was "trialware" and would NOT let me "activate".
Hours and hours with tech support. Eventually one tech told me it conflicted with Roxio (CD burning software) so I deleted Roxio and Norton and started over with Norton. Same problem
Also, computer has slowed down a LOT.
It sucks, I have to reluctantly say.

Rating:
Summary: Worked for a while, but live update crashed it.
Review: Silly me. I figured that updating the Systemwork professional software and virus definitions would be good. Ran live update which showed an error. Pasword manager was broke, Norton antivirus was broke, the rest I did not dare to try. Uninstalled and reinstalled. Now anti-virus will not even install and password manager still does not work. Oh, and live update still is failing. Symantec fix is a 200 step process from wipe out these files to go muck about in the registry. No thanks. Back to 2003 version.

Rating:
Summary: No problem here.
Review: Click on my name to see that I have actually written over 100 reviews of various products including non-computer related material.

Anyway I got this software because I had always been using the free AVG software (it is very good) and wanted to try something more mainstream. So I got Norton AntiVirus 2004 and it found several infected files that AVG did not find. After running a scan using Ad-Aware (another great free spyware program) Norton also found files that Ad-Aware missed. I always use patches and Norton found new stuff.

I have never had a problem with the software. It did what I wanted it to do. A quick search of the internet unveils mostly positive remarks about this software.

This has led me to believe that the negative reviews are simply coming from competitors. So you know what to do there - avoid the competitor for one simple reason alone. If they are out to slice and dice good solid programs that you can sure as hell bet that they are going to take any critic of their own.

The only critic I have of this software is that it can take a long time to scan large systems and does hog a lot memory so I simply run it when I am not doing anything on my machine.

Good product.

Rating:
Summary: Norton A/V 2004
Review: Most disappointed with this particular version. Have used Norton A/V for 5 years with few problems. Was unable to complete installation of Norton A/V in that I could never get the windows page which would allow one to install the activation code. Had 3 separate telephone calls in the course of 3 days with Symantec Priority Care Support (Ticket # 1637215), each tech advised that I had to re-enter a "target code" into the properties code; this coding was a fairly long string of characters and I requested and each tech agreed to send an email with the code string within which would allow a copy and paste. Was assured that the email would be sent within 20 minutes. After waiting 5 days, decided it was time stop wasting time and accept the fact that my money was poorly spent. Now a proud owner of McAfee Virus Scan Pro.

Rating:
Summary: Apparently the Virus has eaten their support team
Review: This is one time that the big brand name purchase is a major mistake! After purchasing this product on line and downloading it, I thought I would have protection with the updates, only to find out that when I changed my ISP, Norton Antivirus live updates no longer worked. After 11 e-mails most of which suggested the same failed proceedures, I have given up and will Purchase McAfee. I have McAfee on 4 units at work and they work fine. One of the benifits of spending money on software is the support that goes with it, obviousy Norton misses this point. This is one product that should be avoided.

Rating:
Summary: Catch 22 problem with NAV 2004
Review: I installed NAV 2004 last week on my Windows 98 system, and activated it a few days later. This morning, I experienced an unrelated PC problem (no sound from my system). Since I had installed some major software the past few days which may have caused the "no sound" problem, I restored my windows system from a backup I had made on 12/7 prior to the software changes. NAV 2004 was installed and operating prior to the backup on 12/7. The sound returned but I was left with a more severe problem. Within a minute of windows starting, it ran out of memory (Windows memory resource quickly went to 0% with a power on reset required for restart). I have a 512MB system. After spending hours troubleshooting, I determined the cause was NAV 2004. I decided to uninstall and re-install NAV 2004. The uninstall using Add/Remove in Control Panel completed OK. The reinstall completed OK. However, as soon as I clicked on the NAV 2004 Icon on my desktop to begin the activate/reactivate process, windows memory resource started dropping like a rock until it was quickly 0%. I restarted my PC and tried uninstalling NAV 2004 again. The uninstall did not complete because as soon as I enabled my cable modem (from standby to on) for the NAV 2004 uninstall to continue, windows memory resource drops to 0% before the uninstall is even half-way done. A second windows restart and uninstall attempt results in an uninstall error message - a missing dat file. So I can't uninstall or install my copy of NAV 2004 - CATCH-22. I have used NAV since 2000 and did not have install/unstall problems this serious with prior versions. I suspect the problems that I am now having are related to the new activation technology. My opinion right now is that the Activation technology is Broken. I recommend that folks sign up for another year of virus definitions for their NAV 2003 rather than purchase NAV 2004. Forums and reviews on the internet suggest that my problem is just one of many with NAV 2004.

Rating:
Summary: loss password
Review: i have just bought NORTON ANTIVIRUS 2004,but i think the passwords they give me is wrong,the password from the casing
can't see clearly,can u give me a clearly wan.thank

Rating:
Summary: don't buy this product
Review: i am by no means a computer expert, but most software and hardware nowadays should be plug and play. i've never encountered anything that just doesn't even properly install until i purchased norton antivirus 2004. i tried installing it on my laptop- no go! i tried installing it on my desktop- nothing. what a waste of $50! and symantec wants me to pay $30 for live technical support- i don't think so. by the way, mcafee installed on both machines the first try and i was done in 20 minutes. i'm boycotting symantec products from this day on.

Rating:
Summary: NAV can result in "X:\ drive is not accessible" error
Review: The first time I suspected that my computer was infected with a virus, I downloaded the trial version of NAV from the Symantec website. After scanning my drives NAV reported back that it had not found anything. Unfortunately, I could no longer access the CD/DVD drive, the A: drive or the external CDRW drive. I surmised that, virus or not, one or more of the system files had been damaged. After days of trying to resolve this issue by working through repairs and reinstalls of Win2K, I reformatted my HD and did a fresh reinstall. The problem was solved but the price paid in terms of time and frustration was very high.

Fast forward 3 months. Again, I suspect a virus so I downloaded the trial version of NAV. Lo and behold, the same problem; CD/DVD, A: and CDRW not accessible. When I did my last format and reinstall, I had decided to create a dual boot for Win 98 and Win2K. I rebooted my machine into Win 98 and everything worked fine. Hoping to avoid another drastic reformatting episode, off I went to the Internet looking for help.

Everywhere I went people with this problem were advised to contact the drive manufacturer, reinstall drivers, reformat the drive partition, etc. None of this made sense; how could all removable drives suddenly fail at the same time. I don't know a lot about computers but logic told me there was an easier solution.

On one of the e-mail threads I noticed that someone had posted the contents of their Autoexec.bat file. In this file was a line loading NAV. On a hunch, back into Win2K I went. Before I uninstalled NAV I decided to uncheck every NAV configuration check-box and reboot. Presto-chango, all the drives worked again.

This is a problem with NAV that is causing many people a lot of frustration. I am not sure what the exact nature of the problem is but it seems (based on the reviews on this site) that not all systems are equally affected. I have Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop built in early 2001 and it cannot handle NAV which is disappointing because I believe that Dell and Symantec have an ongoing business partnership.

I really hope this post can save at least one person the loss of time and the frustration that I have experienced from NAV.

I am a big supporter of Symantec and I take no pleasure in this post. I only hope that they solve the problem so that I can get back to using this product. I looked on their site for help on this but found none. Sadly I have wasted enough time on this problem to look any longer.

Rating:
Summary: Norton 2004
Review: Just got my harddrive reformated (cleaned out and restored like brand new) by a 'computer tech',I believe they call it 're-imaging' your 'harddrive'. I installed 'Norton 2004',works great,but remember,I just got my harddrive 'cleaned' and 'restored' like 'brand new' after two years. My harddrive was so cluttered,left-over antiviruses,cd-rom games,and etc. Remember, if you get your hardrive cleaned out,the 'computer tech' will ask you for your 'recovery disks',alot of these new computers you buy these days don't come with 'recovery disks' any longer,they require you to make your own. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get my harddrive 'cleaned out' every two to three years to keep my computer running up to peak. Next time I buy a computer,I'll look for another one with 'recovery disks',all my present computers have the factory made 'recovery disks',just lucky for now.