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Summary: An installation overview...
Review: I purchased this item and downloaded directly from Norton's not-so-easy-to-use web site. Previously I had used Norton 2003 which worked OK provided you did not turn on their background scanning options (unless you like your quad P-5-Million to run like a 386)Download went smooth. Shortly after the original download, the install started. Make sure that you've disabled or closed every application and non-neccesary process on your system before you start. Make sure you read their included readme file as well to ensure that you don't have any conflicting software installed. At first you'll be asked to do a complete system scan to ensure there are no viruses that will interfere with installation. An hour or so later, the scan should be complete and you'll be ready to install. Installation is relatively painless. Some files are copied, you'll be asked to set up the software to your liking, and then you'll be prompted for a reboot. Here is where it gets a little tricky. Reboot process seems to go along fine. Eventually you end up at the Windows XP user login screen. Click your name, and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait some more. Icons start appearing, slowly, one at a time, and then.. poof.. nothing. Complete lockup. So now you reboot and try again to see if it's just a glitch. Nope, same thing happens.. this time it didn't get quite as far. Try it again, and you'll see similar problems. Go on, keep trying. Eventually, you'll get logged in, and about half an hour later, a blue screen crash complaining about some random driver will appear. Hmm. Finally, I managed to uninstall the software and bring the computer back to it's original state with a little help from a technician. Two weeks later I decided I'd try again just to see if it was a fluke. This time, installation went perfectly, well... right up until the reboot, and then nothing.. well, nothing except for my background picture, followed by a total lock up. Safe mode did the same thing. Luckily WinXP has a boot to previous know good configuration option which worked well, and allowed me to login to immediately uninstall this useless software. Buyer beware. If you're using this on a business machine, be prepared for a fair amount of downtime and lost productivity. Otherwise, just prepare for some serious frustration and a nasty headache. This is the last time I will ever purchase Norton Antivirus.
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Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU PLAN TO UPGRADE YOUR RAM!
Review: I ran Nortons for a year with no trouble at all. I use Nortons system works, its been great, runs scan disks, fixes errors, scan viruses etc.....HOWEVER I upgraded my memory to 512mb of RAM, and guess what???? My nortons can no longer complete a virus scan on my pc. If i attempt to scan my PC, MY PC SHUTS OFFFFFFFFFF! Reboot city. So, i informed symantics aka nortons, and the only reply i got???? "YES WE ARE AWARE OF THE PROBLEM, FOR SOME REASON NORTONS WONT ALLOW VIRUS SCAN IF YOU CARRY MORE THAN 512MB OF RAM." The original problem arouse back in June of 2003, this is now Feb. 2004, still no patch of fix to this. I find this the most rediculous thing ever! How can they charge me almost 100 bucks for something that i cant even use, but cant return either???? Its a sham. I will never ever ever buy A NORTON product again. I relied on the auto enabled virus detector to help shield me, and tho it did shield most everything, when i ran a STINGER (free virus/worm/trojan) scan last week, it detected 2 trojans, and a new worm....screw this! Now i need to find out what soft ware is the best OTHER than nortons. Damn shame too, i have never owned anything else in the 10 years ive owned a pc. Thier loss, my dollar goes else where! Liz
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Summary: I want my Norton 2003 Back
Review: I recently upgraded to Norton 2004 Professional. It is so slow I am considering uninstalling the program. My Norton 2003 was great and did not slow down my computer at all. Unfortunately 2004 is DOG. My advice is to buy an old 2003 Norton. Of the 3 computers I own, it runs alright on one, a new dell. My 6 month old dell and my 1 year old laptop can't seem to run the progam very well. My laptop used to boot in 30-40 seconds and now takes 3-5 minutes. I find it hard to believe they put out such poor product.
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Summary: Save your money; unreliable resource hog
Review: I upgraded from Norton 2003, which was one of the most reliable antivirus tools I've used. The 2004 version promised to catch spyware and adware in addition to viruses. To cut the long story short, I uninstalled this software and went back to the 2003 version. This is a perfect example of how some companies can take a great product and make a horrid mess out of it. The key problems: (1) unreliable, (2) slows a bleeding edge PC with 2 gigs of RAM down to a crawl...a total resource hog that made normal tasks like using Word and checking email intolerably slow, (3) it actually missed a virus and spyware (I found it with Search and Destroy). Save you money...there are better ways to spend it at Amazon!
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Summary: Major problem with product activation
Review: I've been using Norton Antivirus for several years. It's been pretty solid, maybe a bit slow. I thought an upgrade to the latest version would be routine. How wrong I was! The product activation has a bug on Windows XP Professional that makes it "forget" that it's been activated. And after you activate a few times, it locks out your product key leaving your computer completely unprotected. The Symantec knowledge base acknowledges the problem but cheerfully tells you they don't know how to fix it. Testing? What testing? I think it's time to get my money back and buy a product that actually works.
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Summary: The software is fine, Amazon is the problem
Review: This is the 14 day trial!
it does not come with a product key, you can download the 14 day trial for free from Symantec.
I sent Amazon an email thinking for sure this was a mistake and they sent me a link to the Symantis website where i can buy the product key for another $69.00
This is a Scam!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get away from Amazon.com Now!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Extremely frustrated
Review: This is the most frustrating software I have ever used. I have been happy with Symantec products until now. Never had so much frustration loading a product. After following directions & deleting other programs, I finally gave up & loaded my Norton System Works from 2003. Was getting very concerned that I would not be protected as I waited until an update was due and the software kept giving me an error message, and would not load.
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Summary: Even free isn't worth it
Review: This is the second Symantec product I've purchased over the last few years. After hours on the phone with Symantec "support" and more hours surfing their "award winning" support site (who gave them this award and what were they smoking?!), I vowed never again to own a Symantec product.(...)AntiVirus may be a fabulous virus detection, prevention, and elimination product once you get it installed and functioning correctly, but doing so takes an absurd amount of effort. There is a conflict with a standard Windows XP update, so you can't even install without removing that update, installing AV, then reinstalling the update. Once installation was complete, I couldn't activate it for no apparent reason ("Not a valid A8Key"). Turns out AV couldn't get to the Symantec servers, even though I could surf anywhere else I wanted to. No solution for opening ports or anything, you just have to call for phone support (limited hours, M-F only). After 30+ minutes on hold, I had to read the product key (24 alpha-numeric chars) then write down the activation key (34 alpha-numeric chars). Now it's supposedly activated, but it's causing issues with MS Outlook, LiveUpdate won't work, the icon disappears from the system tray, and I can't launch/configure the program once the icon is gone. Solution? Uninstall and reinstall Symantec Norton AntiVirus. Avoid this product like the plague.
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Summary: Taking back what I said before, this truly sucks
Review: When NAV 2004 first came out I gave it four stars, but I now rescind that positive review completely. The program has been a total resource hog in the last two months and, to my great dismay last week, it actually missed catching a virus! The culprit was the "auto update" thing which hadn't worked for a long time! This is the worst piece of software I've come across. I downloaded a free version of Panda Anti-Virus last week and it was able to catch and clean the virus without a hitch. NAV sucks and I'll never buy another product from Symantec again.
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