Friday, January 13, 2006

Symantec Gripes (excluding Norton AntiVirus)

Have you had problems with Symantec software? If so, tell the world about it here. Please don't use this page for gripes about Norton AntiVirus, there is another page devoted to NAV. I expect most of the gripes to come from users of a Symantec software suite. We'll see...

You can gripe anonymously, however if you ask a question an email address is necessary to get any responses.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a laptop that came with Norton Internet Security pre-installed. Now, the subscription with the "purchase" of the hardware has come to an end. I am attempting to "renew" the subscription - and I can't believe how HARD it is to give Symantic money! Every time I try the renewal process, the software (1) tries to sell me an updated improved product [which I do not want] or (2) asks for passwords and "Account ID Number" and other data - all in the guise of making it easier to renew by pre-filling out forms.I cannot seem to get past this part of the renewal. Symatic Customer service is about as useful as typing on a computer with the power off. Anyone know how to just simply RENEW a Norton Internet Security Product?

Michael Horowitz said...

Joe,
Maybe you should take the hint and un-install the Symantec software rather than fight with it. If its so bad trying to give them money, imagine how bad it will be when you need their help with something.
Michael

Anonymous said...

Firewall, firewall, firewall. To connect, turn off the Symantec/Norton firewall. Long term however, you'll have to either learn how to use it or get rid of it completely and use another firewall program instead.

Anonymous said...

I used SystemWorks after giving up on Antivirus but I could not get liveupdate to update after a few weeks and Symantec said to uninstall and reinstall. The third time this happened since 11/05 I gave up and uninstalled all of it.

What was upsetting was that I love Ghost, but the liveupdate problem also affected Ghost, which I reinstalled and seems not to have a liveupdate problem.

But from time to time I will get a error message about a NAV reference, which I eventually find in the register, but am too timid to delete the string.

liveupdate is a deadhorse

Anonymous said...

Last year I installed Norton SystemWorks, which includes AntiVirus, Firewall, and a bunch of other stuff of marginal value. After a year it comes time to update the subscription to Norton Firewall. The subscription includes only Symantec's list of "safe" applications, which never lists the applications I use anyway, so I elect to not renew the subscription but keep using the firewall.

The problem with that is LiveUpdate keeps nagging me to renew the subscription, often several times a day. Symantec support says there's no way to make it stop as long as the firewall is installed. So, I uninstalled Norton Firewall and started using ZoneAlarm Free. The uninstall went fine, with no errors or problems reported.

But then LiveUpdate started telling me several times each day that there are updates available that I must install. When I ran it, the only thing it updated is the Norton Trusted Application List, which is used for the firewall! The update was, of course, completely bogus: LiveUpdate was trying to update an uninstalled application.

So, Symantec support says the only fix is to run SymNRT, which uninstalls everything! There's no way to get LiveUpdate (at least, that they'll tell me about) to stop interrupting me several times a day to do this useless update.

I'm about ready to run SymNRT, when the problem suddenly, for no apparent reason, stops. So I'm OK for now.

Next time my Norton AV subscription expires I'm going to remove every piece of Symantec software (except the fantastic GoBack), and buy something from a company that has more respect for it's customers and is capable of writing an uninstall script that works.

Anonymous said...

why do i keep getting a notice my subscription is expired when i just renewed it???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Anonymous said...

I am running Norton Internet Security (which I had to get to have NAV). It keeps telling me that the virus definitions are not up to date..Live update keeps telling me that the system is up to date. I could spend all day going from one to the other if I just did what it suggested. What a bunch of crxx.

Anonymous said...

Let me tell you about the latest trick Symantec is playing with Ghost. I AM FURIOUS! After a couple other negative experiences in the past 2 years, I am now telling everyone to NEVER use Symantec products again.

We installed Ghost 2003 on our Windows XP HP laptop, like we had done with our 3 Dells with XP over the years, went to go run a Clone operation in the program, it restarts just like it said it would, but then it comes to a blank screen that says "missing operating system". After dinkin' around for hours on our own and on their on-line help where there is an inadequate explanation of the "missing operating system" message, we decide to call India. We are then told that Norton no longer supports the 2003 version (as of June 1st 2006) and that we need go out and BUY version 10.0. (Even if we had 9.0, they would not support it.) So we go out this morning and buy 10.0 which was $70. Call the help desk back because we now have the product that they WILL support and he tells us to insert the 2003 version disk and procedes to walk us through the unblocking of the partition that 2003 caused - using the 2003 disk. We never even used the 10.0 disk, and I'll be damned if I will use it now either. They fixed our problem and then bent us over and charged us ANOTHER $29.95 for the priviledge.

So, in summary, they DO NOT support 2003, but will only help us if we run out and buy the latest version which has the same effing disk PLUS a 10.0 disk (that they don't even use to fix the issue) and charge us for the tech call.

I REPEAT: WE NEVER EVEN CRACKED THE SEAL ON THE 10.0 DISK ENVELOPE

As far as "service calls" go, and given how mission critical this laptop's health is, it may seem cheap. But keep in mind we bought Ghost in the first place to protect our vital data! It says on the box it can be installed on this system, and in effect, we had to buy TWO copies plus pay the cost of a tech call just to get one package promised.

It's just wrong!

Anonymous said...

Norton products have always been resource hogs, especially when they went to the "suite" format. "Lucky" for Norton, McAfee and other competitors' products suck even worse. NEVER get Norton Internet Security as it'll render a healthy system paltry under the guise that it's keeping you "safe". Norton Anti-virus has basically always been a good product on its own, I'll admit and , YES, you MUST pay to keep it current (no secret, that's been a fact of life almost since day one). $30 a year is worth it.
Despite that, their technical support sucks, and their subscription service is riddled with problems (heard about the "you must upgrade this product" fiasco almost immediately AFTER UPGRADING online?!). Dump the NIS, Norton Firewall and the whole lot but stick with the plain vanilla Norton Anti-virus and a decent brand hardware router with NAT. P.S. When you upgrade, don't do it online.

Anonymous said...

After 10 years of fighting Symantec Anti-virus (SystemWorks) which I have on five computers, I finally got a DIVIORCE! Anyone trying to get tech support knows what I'm talking about. I won't ever buy another product of theirs.

bmbofcu@insightbb.com

Anonymous said...

I resubscribed to my Norton antivirus account and received a reconfirmation email some time ago. Since then I have been besieged with requests to renew.If you cannot detect that i have renewed how good are you in detecting viruses and other assaults.

Lay off!

Anonymous said...

Just had a virus or work discovered running (of all places) from Norton's quarrantine directory. Norton anti virus 2006. I won't ever buy another Symantec product. Destroyed my hard drive.

Anonymous said...

For the second year in a row, Symantec has sent me a postcard stating that my rebate could not be validated because of a missing UPC. This is an out and out lie. I double checked and tripled checked all paperwork before mailing. I also made copies of all submitted paperwork.
The first time they pulled this stunt, I called them and told them I had copies of all materials and that there was no way they did not receive everything they needed to process my rebate. The CSR told me my rebate would be mailed in 4 to 6 weeks from that date. Basically, drawing out the time period they had to send out my rebate.
This time, they claimed the same thing. They are not responsible for lost paperwork. How convenient for them. I told the CSR that they were lying again as they tried to make the same claim last year. This year, I had to read over the phone what my UPC number was to validate my rebate. Once again, it will be 4 to 6 weeks before they mail my rebate.
This seems to be a ploy they use in order to keep a person's money longer than they state on their rebate. They invalidate it, then send you a notice of such, make you validate it, then tell you it will be 4 to 6 more weeks before you receive it, thus giving them more time to use your money. I don't know what can be done about this type of business practice but would be interested in any suggestions.
I don't appreciate their using the system to drag out paying the rebate. Anyone else have this problem, as I am sure they do it on a regular basis.

Anonymous said...

In Symantec Live Update 3.1 I opened "Configure" and checked the box that allows the update to run without an intermediate step. I didn't like the result, so I tried to go back and reconfigure it the way it was before. That's when I discovered that the "Configure" feature had been disabled! So I was unable to either select an automatic update time or configure Live Update in any way. I then tried going to the Win XP Control Panel "repairing" Symantec Client Security, which I supposed would include Live Update. But the disabled Configure feature did not return. Very frustrating. Has anyone else encountered this and found a way around it?

Anonymous said...

Uninstalled all norton-symantec stuff on my computer. Went with micro trend, forgot about the auto-pay thing. They went ahead and billed my credit card 53+ bucks although i no longer even have it installed. Also the the billing was 3 weeks before expiration date. What a rip off.

Ecsa0014 said...

I gave up on Symantec products about a year and a half ago. My last purchase, Norton Internet Security 2006, had a bug in the firewall that would make the computer next to impossible to shut down if the computer was left on for an extended period of time (More than 2-3 hours). After contacting support about this problem I was told that this problem was fixed in Norton Internet Security 2007 and that I should purchase it and no fix would be available for NIS 2006. The odd thing was this bug only showed up after about 5 months(Around the same time NIS 2007 came out). For my $70 I got cheated out of a $40 rebate, got a defective (or made to be defective to force upgrades) product, and only got to use half of my subscription because I had to uinstall NIS 2006 due to the defect. Symantec will never see another dime of my money.

Anonymous said...

I had XP on my computer and ran Systemworks 2006 Premier. No problems. I added Antivirus 2007 when the subscription in NSW expired. Then I installed Internet Security 2007 and Ghost 12. After that my CD and DVD drives stopped showing up and were unaccessable. Word and Excel couldn't be opened. Attempting to open attachments in OE caused it to close. Contacting Symantec Technical Support got me in contact with an Indial 6th grader from the usefulness of the help and the proficiency in English. The solution seems to be to reformat my hard drive, reinstall all programs except Symantec's, and never to contaminate my computer with their products again.