Customer Reviews

Norton Antivirus 2009 3User [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Until recently I used a competitors security suite,I had this Norton preinstalled on both my new PCs so I gave it a chance,I should say I had Internet 2008 not 2009,but I liked 2008 so I bought 2009 suite.It uses far less CPU cycles and way less memory than my previous security ware.It installed no hassles it even uninstalled Norton 2008 before installing 2009.It worked flawless,the download was fast and both PCs had no problems after.It only took about 5 minutes per PC to install.I would reccomend this software.Also my desktop runs Vista Home Premium 64 Bit,so I know this software is compatable.My first complete scan took only fifteen minutes and it scanned roughly 450,000 items,so its pretty quick.

I'm a long standing Norton A/V user who was thinking about changing my A/V program after being disillusioned by Norton A/V 2008. I am so glad I decided to give Norton another chance. This is the BEST version I have seen. Everything is in front of you, they got rid of the dual icons in the system tray and found a way to make their product use very few system resources.On top of that:
1. it updates virus definitions every 15 minutes
2. keeps a list of files that have been scanned and proven safe. Once one of these safe files is changed, it gets scanned again on the next scan. This makes the weekly scan go much faster.
3. it has an easier to follow interface
4. uses very little of your CPU resources. It even comes with a CPU usage monitor to prove it to you!

Norton has won me over once again. I am so glad I did not switch.

I've used Norton AV since it's inception, on both my personal computers, and in most of my corporate environments. As a Director of IT, it was usually my product of choice.

Norton AV always was a bit of a resource hog, but not to the point of being unusable. Plus it receives high marks from reviewers for catching viruses and spyware. Since I'm on subscription, I received an invitation to upgrade to the 2009 version, which I accepted.

This version now hijacks my computer, sucking down the CPU, making it nearly impossible to use the computer. Once this happens, it takes me literally several minutes just to close windows to reboot. Rebooting fixes the problem temporarily. Eventually (an hour or two) Norton AV will hijack the computer again. I have tried to wait it out, but this hijack seems to last indefinitely -- hours anyway.

Calling support, the Tech connected to my computer (this is really a nice support feature of Symantec, I will say -- were it effective), and proceeded to the startup configuration of Windows and TURNED EVERYTHING OFF! He then rebooted (which as you can see from the above, fixes the problem temporarily), and proclaimed my problem fixed.

I asked if he did anything to fix it, and he wouldn't answer. I said I need to know if it's fixed because I had lost 2 days to this problem, and I needed to know it was fixed or I had to move on to another product. His answer was "as you wish".

As you can guess the problem came back just as before. My guess is the Symantec Techs know this is a problem and have no way to fix it.

As you can also guess, nothing worked until I turned things back on in the Windows startup configuration.

This is an unusable product in my experience. I was forced to give it one star to submit this review. I am now going to re-open this for review at the company I work for (around 12,000 computers globally), and likely put a replacement out for bid.

I have used Norton Antivirus for years, though I am disappointed with the 2009 update. For one thing, it will not work with ZoneAlarm, though you only learn about this as you attempt to install the product...so there goes your firewall if you use ZA. I purchased a three-user license, and only successfully loaded Norton on one machine. The other two kept locking up, even when I did not let ZA load at startup, and even after I used Norton's software removal tool to uninstall Norton Antivirus 2008. Bottom line, the 2009 version of Norton is not what I have come to expect from Symantec.

Problems with Norton 2009, I have used Norton Antivirus for around six years with the current version being 2008 of which I am very pleased with. About a month ago I received an up-date notice to install Norton Antivirus 2009 free for the rest of my subscription, as I still had about four months left of my subscription I felt this was a great deal from Norton and upgraded all three laptops.

That was my first mistake, within days I was getting screen lock-ups, blue screens of death, problems with opening programs on all three laptops By sending the crash reports to Microsoft they narrowed the problems down to Antivirus software, suggesting the update might not have fully removed the 2008 version.

I completely removed the 2009 version using the removal tool and reinstalled Norton 2008, now all three laptops are running perfectly again.

Would be interested if anyone else has had similar problems, as my subscription to Norton runs out in two and a half months, and am not really keen to try Norton 2009 a second time.

I installed Norton Antivirus 2009 alongside Zone Alarm firewall and my system froze. Upon installation, Norton Antivirus 2009 directs the user--without explanation--to uninstall Zone Alarm but also offers the option to skip this step (without advising of why Zone Alarm should be uninstalled nor what the consequences of skipping the uninstall of Zone Alarm might be). I have freed up the system by disabling and later uninstalling Zone Alarm however I am none too pleased with Symantec.

So how does the new version of Norton Antivirus work compared to the previous version? I have no idea. Any potential improvements were upstaged by the hassles associated with installing it.

Product works fine after the installation which gave me a bit of trouble.
Had previously been running Norton Internet Security 2008.
I did un-install NIS before loading the new AV2009, yet ran into unexpected dialog box looking for SimIM.sys.
It was looking for this driver in:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\SymNetDrv
where Norton Internet security had the file orginally.
At first I though it was confused, but after searching the hard drive
found the file in the AV2009 directory:
C:\program files\Norton Antivirus\Engine\16.0.0.125\SymIM
Don't know why it was looking in the wrong place, but finding the driver in the AV directory suggested it was suppose to be a part of AV2009.

So I pointed the dialog at this directory and the remainder of the install progressed just fine.

Been running on 2 computers for 1 week now w/o any problems.

When I tried to install a similar product(Norton internet security 2009 i.e. same base) I got an "incompatible operating system" error. I looked at the box and saw that sure enough Windows XP is supported. Then I double checked to make sure that I had SP2 or later. I then called Symantec support who informed me that they do not have any product which supports Windows XP 64 BIT (which is what I have) and that they would not give me a refund(since I purchased it through Amazon). Amazon customer support was good to me though,(so far) and despite it being an opened software package has let me return it. Hopefully my comments here will spare someone the trouble that I had to go through.

Advanced protection did not work on one of the computers. After numerous hours of on-line chat with Symantec tech support they could not resolve the problem, said there was no virus or other malicious software on the computer and suggested I pay $90 for the next level of support. $90 to fix their problem is more than the software cost. Also, it created a conflict with Power Desk 7 which was resolved by Power Desk not Symantec. Bottom line, I removed it from all 6 of our computers and for less than the cost of Symantec support I went back to using CA's AntiVirus which has been problem free for 5 years.

the clock starts on all 3 licences when the 1st one is installed. I have three different 'puters at home that will end their current licences at different times and I was going to phase them over to Norton.....if I wait until the last one runs out my others will be without protection for awhile. If I load the first one now, I will not get a full year on the others....this is BS and typical of beancounter influenced policies. I feel cheated.