Issues with Norton Anti-Virus 2005 and 2006

I just spent about 32 hours uninstalling and reinstalling the Norton 2005 Anti-Virus application.  They have made the process so completely horrible that I can no longer recommend this software.  It is very frustrating because the older versions of this Norton product (2003-2005) worked very well.  However, the problem began when I went to uninstall the 2005 version so I could either reinstall it or install the 2006 version. 

The problem I had (and several other people I found on the Internet also had) was when reinstalling the product I got an error message that said "RB_versionControl.BC731320_557D_4E8F_8CED_C..."  As I said, I searched the Internet looking for an answer and no one I found was ever able to resolve this issue.  So this became a challenge for me.  It was either I reinstall Windows XP (which would have been faster) or I try and figure this out.  After spending several hours I contacted Symantec's customer support.  I did the online support where you get to talk with a "first" level support person.  He basically told me to do everything that I already did but refused to support me until I did it again.  So I went through the complete uninstall process - downloading the SymNRT 3 files and running them then deleting the Norton and Symantec pointers from the system Registry etc.  Another thing Symantec failed to mention is that they also install "drivers" on your computer.  I found those and manually deleted them too.

Then tried to install it again and still had no luck.  After several emails back and forth from their support staff and with no real suggestions to resolve this install issue, I asked that this issue be escalated to a senior support person.  The person did not actually pass the case on to a senior person but the recommendations I got back in the next email were most certainly from a senior support person.  For those who are looking for an answer to the issue I found, here is a link to those suggestions from Symantec.  I basically used those suggestions along with my own knowledge and was eventually able to delete Symantec and Symantec related products (which they forgot to mention) from the Registry.  After that I was able to complete the LiveUpdate setup.exe process.  Next I was able to successfully install Norton AV 2006.

The problem with Norton 2006 is that the Norton Protection Center is always running.  There is no box to click to turn it off.  However, what I did find is that you can go into the Services area and disable this from being turned on. 

Norton Protection Center for AV 2006 can be disabled in "services"
Start > Run > Type  "services.msc"  (w/o quotes) >  press Enter;
and scroll down to Norton Protection Center and right click on it.  Then select properties and set to disable from there.

I really hope all this information helps. 
Regards,
Dale
 

The following article I found on Amazon.com pretty much sums up what I am finding regarding Norton's most recent product line...  Which again is really unfortunate because it used to be a really decent product.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B5NS2G/102-9469841-3677756?v=glance&n=229534

A Poorly Tested, Unstable & Unreliable Piece of Bloatware, April 16, 2006
Late last year when my subscription for updating "Norton Antivirus 2005" was about to expire, I decided to update my software to the more complete "Norton Internet Security 2006" in the belief that this would be a superior overall product with the addition of a personal firewall and a spam-blocker bundled with the latest version of NAV (Norton Antivirus). For many years, I had been using ZoneAlarm (ZA) for a personal firewall, so before NIS (Norton Internet Security) could be installed, ZA had to be uninstalled. Once installed, NIS appeared to work very well for about two and half months. Then, I started to notice several problems: other applications were running more slowly and it was taking an increasing amount of time to turn my PC off. Then, not long thereafter, I started to notice more troubling issues with NIS: namely, I had scheduled it to run NAV once a week to do a complete virus scan on all of the files on my PC. When this scheduled task would begin, it would stop functioning after checking about 25% of the files on my PC. The window that would appear during the weekly-scheduled virus scan would remain open, but there was no update to the number of files being scanned and the hard-drive on my PC was not in use indicating that NAV had frozen. If I attempted to shut down the weekly scan, the window would close, but it would then become impossible to start a manual virus scan without rebooting because NAV would report that a scan was already in progress. After rebooting the PC, which was also highly problematic as several NIS files would not shut down (including one called "ccApp.exe"), I could start a manual virus scan, but it would result in exactly the same frozen result as with the automatic weekly virus scan. The PC shutdown problem always occurred whether or not a scheduled or manual virus scan had been initiated. It would take at least 5 minutes for my PC to shutdown. The first file that would not shutdown was Symantec's file "ccApp.exe". After the shutdown window was acknowledged to end the locked file, the PC would remain in a frozen, pre-shutdown state for several minutes before several other frozen files also finally shutdown.

Having previously installed the 2003 version of "Norton Systemworks" (NSW) several years ago, I attempted to use that application to repair the problems that I was observing with NIS. However, this had no affect. I then considered upgrading NSW to the 2006 version, but when I saw the number of negative reviews describing numerous problems associated with that product, I decided against it. I then also decided to see what others had written for reviews for NIS 2006 and NAV 2006. For both of these products, the reviews are predominantly negative as well.

Being a software engineer myself, it is my opinion that Symantec is no longer sufficiently testing its software products before releasing them for sale to consumers. Many people (myself included) have maintained a high opinion of Symantec's NAV application because previous years' versions have been highly stable and reliable. However, the obvious lack of sufficient testing by Symantec for the 2006 versions of NAV, NIS and NSW have changed that opinion. It is clear from my own adverse experience with the 2006 versions of NAV and NIS, as well as many other people who have had bad experiences with these products, that the 2006 versions of NAV, NIS and NSW are unstable and unreliable. Given the fact that NAV 2006 would always freeze when attempting all of PC's files, there is no actual guarantee that it was actually scanning live internet activity to ensure that no virus, worm or trojan horse could infect my PC.

Finally, after attempting to improve the situation by shutting down other automatically loaded applications upon boot-up to no avail, I decided that the only solution was to uninstall NIS, including its bundled NAV. Upon doing so, my PC no longer operates at a snails pace and it shuts down within a few seconds (as it had always done prior to installing NIS 2006). I then installed McAfee's antivirus software (not the bundled version) and reinstalled the latest free version of the ZA firewall. It is obvious that Symantec has transformed its once very reliable and stable NAV into an unstable & unreliable piece of bloatware that will greatly diminish system performance and integrity. For this reason, I have no choice but to rate "Norton Internet Security 2006" with 1 star. If you are considering purchase of this product, I would highly advise that you first investigate other vendors' similar products. I would also advise that you don't necessarily purchase a bundled application, which may have similar bloatware problems as Symantec's "Norton Internet Security 2006".