Norton 2009 products released...

[MadAmosMalone]

I just had a quick look and NAV2009 shows up in security center on both my systems that are running it. one was updated from 2008 the other was a clean install, this is with XPsp3

[HAN]

Hmmm... Sounds like KLR's Security Center may be "stuck". Here are some Google results for resetting it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...et&btnG=Search

[KLR]

Han - reset tool did not work - think it may be NSW2008 inability to see NAV2009 that also affects Security Center.
Ken

[HAN]

Yes, that could certainly be part of the issue...

[BrxBy]

Well, it's a slow Saturday night... So I downloaded Norton Internet Security 2009 and loaded it up on my XP Pro SP3 laptop.

Pros:

It loaded blazingly fast. Symantec says a minute and while I didn't time it, it seemed like less than a minute. Amazing for a product that's an AV and a firewall. And it did not require a reboot to run.

Updates and the way it updates are much different than the old Norton programs. LiveUpdate is now part of the program. Definition updates seem to trickle out from Symantec every 5 minutes or so. It may not be that often but it sure seems like it. (After initial testing, I turned off auto LiveUpdate. I need to pick and choose my update times at home (I'm on very slow dialup and need to control everything that connects... both what and when.)) But even manually updating proves that updates are coming from Symantec every few minutes. Kind of unbelievable when I've been used to only 2 or 3 a day.

CPU activity, number of processes and RAM usage are much lower than before. To help monitor NIS 2009's usage, it now includes a CPU Usage bar chart. As I type this, NIS 2009 is using 0% CPU and around 10.5 MB of RAM. Only 2 processes show up under TaskManager. Excellent results!

A full system scan took just under 17 minutes for 15 GB. Very quick!

I ran the firewall against GRC's ShieldsUp and it tested stealth for the main 1056 ports test.

I also tested NIS 2009 while running under my Limited User account. While the main interface is blocked from changes when running under a limited account (which is a good idea), NIS 2009 can still download and update virus and filter definitions. A key thing that needs to happen.

The home menu screen gives a nice overall report of current program conditions. When running from an admin account, you can drill down from here to reach the more advanced settings.

Cons:

By far the most serious... 2 freeze-ups so far. One at shut down and one at boot. Both froze on the desktop image. In both cases, I had to hold down the power button to kill the PC to be able to start over. (This is on a month old Dell laptop that ran fine before this on NOD32 and free ZoneAlarm (both completely removed before installing NIS.) Not good!

In some areas, the advanced portion of the interface menu is not the easiest to grasp. If you want to tweak something, plan on spending some time. (Although to be honest, most users probably won’t change much.) One example, if you wish to disable an item as I did (outbound email scanning), the tray icon turned red and it wasn’t the easiest thing to figure out how to make it green again. (I needed to find the “Ignore” link.)

Since I’m new to NIS 2009, there are probably tweaks I’ve missed. But by default, downloading zipped copies of the eicar.com test file did not trigger an alert. Only the fully extracted file set off an alarm. (By comparison. NOD32, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Avast and more do this without any setup changes.) IMO, the scanning of archive downloads should be a default behavior. It seems to me that preventing a bad download to start with is much safer than catching it only at execution.

I’m probably spoiled by ZoneAlarm, but I can’t find a way to have the firewall always ask the user for permission to allow a specific program to have access to the web. It’s either Allow or Block. (This isn’t a serious issue and it’s probably this way for many firewalls. But I like the flexibility to always Allow, Deny or Ask.)

These are my first impressions. I plan to keep NIS on my laptop for a few more days to give it a more compete workout. So more later...

I'm having a similar problem and was wondering if you had any advice. I downloaded NIS 2009 as an "upgrade" at the end of my subscription (26 days left!) and it's causing freeze-up problems. It works fine for a while, but then my CPU Usage spikes to 100% and freezes up everything. The Norton meters don't attribute it to Norton, and I don't see any oddities in the processes according to Task Manager (I opened it before "the freeze"). The problem went away when I uninstalled Norton. Any suggestions on how to diagnose this problem (for a non-techie)?

[usil]

If you ask me, uninstalling it was probably the best way to fix it. If so many people experience the same problem, it's probably not worth the trouble.

FWIW, Anti Viruses are judged on all aspects, not just detecting and removing viruses. Their is ease of use, speed of scanner, footprint and many more things to take into consideration. If Norton doesn't fix such a big flaw in its program, then it is simply considered a bad program.

[MadAmosMalone]

The problem you are having is not the norm, I have now 4 computers running NAV2009 with zero problems all are Xp sp3. I would make sure you have your activation key then download the Norton removal tool from
http://tinyurl.com/3nlr96 run it and then reinstall your Norton 2009. It is also possible that you have a conflict with another software I would turn off any thing like Teatimer or other antispyware that may be interfering until after the Norton install is done. If this doesn't help I would contact Norton support and see if they can help.

[KLR]

I had freeze up problems until I did a CLEAN uninstall of Zone Alarm.

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/b...ssage.id=81451

No problems since with NAV2009.
Ken

[HAN]

I agree that a clean install of any AV is crucial.

BrxBy, I would first download the Norton Removal Tool http://service1.symantec.com/Support...05033108162039
Then, I would uninstall NIS 2009 using the normal Add/Remove Programs. Next, reboot. Then run the NRT and reboot again. Finally, reinstall NIS 2009.

** Be aware that the NRT removes ALL Norton products. So if you have System Works, Ghost, etc., the NRT will remove them too. If you have them, be sure you have the discs to reinstall them if you need to.**

[HAN]

A followup to my occasional hanging boots...

I have been running NIS 2009 on both of my PCs. In general, everything has been as I described earlier... very good. That said, my new Dell continued to have an occasional hang during boot. Since I had installed NIS before (I had restored back to an earlier PC image between my initial test and the final purchased installation), I had already tested it on the Dell with 2 separate installations (from 2 separate downloads.)

I checked over at the Norton support forum for any advice and they suggested turning off the real-time component of Superantispyware. I wasn't crazy about doing so but I did. And... it made no difference. (I never had any CPU spikes or anything like that.) So, I finally came to the conclusion that for whatever reason, NIS 2009 and the Dell just weren't mixing. So I rolled back to my pre-NIS image and stayed with my previous NOD32 (I did change the firewall from free ZoneAlarm 6.x to Comodo 3.x) That combination has proven to work together very well.

As for my HP PC, I am staying with NIS 2009 on it and it continues to run great.