Rating: 
Summary: still love norton
Review: after reading the review's i allmost didn't buy this copy of 2004 pro., but i'm very glad now that i did. would have rated it 5 star's if not for ghost being so hard to work your way from start to finish. the anti virus part is still the best and even better. ghost work's but you may have to fix so thing's on your computor and make a gdisk on a floppy along with your cd's it is a 9 cd long image for my hard drive that is 11gb used space. the rebate was the fastest ever, had it back in just about a week and a half.
Rating: 
Summary: Consider the Alternatives
Review: Having used the Norton Utilities since Peter Norton first brought them out, I am abandoning them. The other reviews on this page describe the problems with them, which get worse with each "upgrade." Symantec is following McAfee's lead: unbundled programs (It's better to sell 10 programs at $30 each than one integrated suite at $100), conflicts between the programs, lots of bugs, no customer service, and a $30/year per program charge for updates.
Where we reviewers fall down is in not suggesting alternatives (It doesn't cut it to say that there are better programs available and not identify them by name). So I'm offering these alternatives in the hope that other reviewers will suggest others:1. ANTI-VIRUS: "PC-cillin" by Trend Micro is the hands-down favorite. 2. TOOL KITS: Take a look at "Fix-It Utilities 5" by Vcom and "WinOptimizer Suite" by AShampoo. Another option is "System Mechanic 3" by Iolo Technologies, although that gets mixed reviews. 3. SUITES (Security, Privacy, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam): Check out "System Suite 5" by Vcom. Note the Vcom recently purchased "Fix-It Utilities" and "System Suite" from OnTrack, so there may be transition problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Use only GoBack and Ghost, disregard the rest.
Review: I have not used Systemworks Pro since version 2002 (and I will never again, it bogs down any PC and the system utilities have messed up my PC way too many times), however I am a very happy user of GoBack 3 De-Luxe and Ghost 2002.
I purchased Goback before Roxio sold it to Symantec, so mine still has the Roxio/Adaptec user interface, but hopefully has not been able to mess it up in just a couple of months. I would say: if you like to have a tuned-up working PC (and that should be the reason that pushes one to shop for Systemworks, your best bet is probably to became proficient with Goback and Ghost included in Systemworks and forget about any system cleaning/tuning utilities. Ghost will allow you to create a copy of your system (hopefully at a time when it is working fine) that can be reinstalled in a matter of minutes (or hours, depending on size).
Goback allows to goback to the past to undo the bad effects of an installation or anything wrong.
It is similar to the system restore that is part of Windows XP or Me, but a lot more powerful (after going back you can still recover specific files from the "future" that you might want to keep, or if Windows ain't booting, no problem: Goback Deluxe kicks in before the Bios looks for an OS, so just press the space bar when prompted by GoBack and pick the time to go back to. This is a Duo that keep your system running forever, but you need to learn how to use them properly (Disclaimers, Inc.). Important: my suggestion is to use only Ghost and Goback out of Systemworks, so it takes some tinkering with the installation, and a lot of disabling services and options after the installation, to try to limit the PC paralysis induced by a default Norton installation and to avoid being harassed by the stupid Norton Protected Recycled bin, clean sweeper, windoctor, big brother or whatever else they are called, another option is to get standalone versions of Ghost and Goback, or even better to download free 15 day trials from Symantec, test them out, license them if you like them.
Rating:
Summary: Long time Norton user, and unsatisfied NSW 2004 customer
Review: I have to agree with the reviews listed here. I've used Symantec products for over 10 years, this version stinks. Very large, slow running programs, plenty of General Protection Faults and it destroyed my standard Microsoft Solitaire (SOL.exe) game. Something bad has happened with the 2004 versions, I'm sending it back and trying to re-install NAV 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy This Product
Review: I have used Norton products for years with great success. But now I have an ME machine that I cannot use Windows Explorer because it locks up. I have to boot the machine 4 or 5 time to get it to come up properly only to have it lock up in Explorer. All of this started since I installed the NSW 2004 version. Customer service tells me that one of my programs is interfering with nprotect, but it is the other way around. It is their product that is interfering with my other software, and it won't uninstall. I tried their cumbersome manual method of uninstalling the software but it didn't work. There is no way to get this product off my machine except a total rebuild of the hard drive. Norton had some great products but I guess they just got too greedy with the annual upgrades.
Rating:
Summary: Stick with the older versions of this suite.
Review: I have used Norton SystemWorks for years and have been very satisfied with it - until now. SystemWorks Pro 2004 really gummed up my system. So, I'm sending it back. My advice is not to buy it unless, and until, you see a steady stream of positive comments here and on CNET.com.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: I rated this program as a one star only because there was no lower rating on the scale. I bought Systemworks 2004 and tried to install it last night. I tried it on my Windows XP partition and also on the Windows 98 partition with the same results each time. I have just finished restoring my computer 24 hours later. On the first install, it said it would overwrite Systemworks 2003. I let it try. Almost all the way through, it gave an error message saying that it found Ghost and could not install over it. Then it completely uninstalled the entire program. I then removed Systemworks 2003 but found out later that their uninstalld does not remove all of it. Next try, installation started and then said that I have Antivirus 2002 on my computer. It was there 2 years ago but was replaced with NAV 2003 a year ago. It asked for disk "Antivirus Label" whatever that is. Not having ever owned any such disk, I could not provide it. Systemworks then unstalled everything again. When I tried to run my computer after all this, Explorer would not open folders and the computer locked up. I have used their products since 1986 and this is the worst piece of garbage that I ever wasted my money on.
Rating: 
Summary: Slowed the system too much.
Review: I used Norton Systemworks 2001 on my old laptop with Windows 1998. Considering the laptop was second-hand when I bought it in March 2000, had 2GB hard-drive, 40mb RAM and a Pentium 133MHz processor - I gave the credit to Norton for making it last until February of this year. And even then, it was the screen that went on it. I bought a new laptop shortly afterwards, and as I had so much sucess with Norton Systemworks 2001, I thought I would treat myself to the latest version, and bought Norton Systemworks Pro 2004. I had no problem installing the software, and enjoyed seeing familar features like the one-button check-up. However, I noticed a considerable decrease in performance on my laptop (Inspiron 8600) after the installation. It seemed to take twice as long to start-up and shut-down, and programs took longer to load. DVDs etc. did not seem to run as smoothly, and the computer seemed to revert to a lower spec in terms of it's overall performance - which was not my intention at all. I made a mistake by not reading reviews prior to purchasing the product, and being blinded by my experiences of previous Norton products. I have since uninstalled the software (I encountered no problems here either) and asked for a refund from Symantec. I am pleased to say that the computer's performance has returned to normal. Perhaps Norton should go back to the drawing-board here - and rather than try and adapt their software to Windows XP and higher spec systems, completely start from scratch. I think that after reading most of these reviews, a change of name for this product might be the best thing for Norton's reputation!
Rating:
Summary: Slowed my system down
Review: I was very dissapointed with this product. After installing and running SystemWorks, I noticed every application I run on my computer had slowed down considerably. There was constant hard drive activity, even doing somthing as simple as navigating the programs menu under windows. I also noticed my firewall reporting that windows messenger was accessing the internet in the background, which it had never done prior to installing this software(why did it need to do that?). If it didnt slow my system down so much I may have kept using it, but it was to much of a performance hit. I will say on a positive note, it uninstalled nicely.
btw, system specs are an AthlonXP 2400, 512 ram, Geforce4 ti4200.
Rating:
Summary: Configuration Problems Galore
Review: I would stick with NSW 2003 Pro and not just because of the product activation. Too many problems with the installed Norton Antivirus (NAV) 2004. What is irritating is that Symantec knows there are specific problems with the auto protect feature in NAV 2004, but you do not get the error message until it's installed. You're then linked to their website to check specific settings in Windows (I'm using XP Pro). Then if that doesn't work, there is a another set of steps they recommend including uninstalling and reinstalling systemworks, cleanbooting, etc. In my setup, NSW 2004 Pro had to be installed before the Zonealarm firewall. The auto protect feature in NAV 2004 would not activate if you installed NSW 2004 Pro after Zonealarm. You would get a specific error message and be linked to the Symantec website to go through all those steps mentioned previously. If those steps didn't work, then they wanted you to go through an uninstall/reinstall. By the time you get through (and it still doesn't work), you've just had it. In another case, the auto protect feature in NAV was disabled by the installation of a Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card. I went back to NSW 2003 Pro which includes NAV 2003 and there were none of these problems.
| 
