Customer Reviews

Norton SystemWorks/Personal Firewall 2004 Bundle

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am running Windows XP SP 1 on a machine with a 2.26 GHz P4 and 1 GB of physical memory.

This morning I installed the Norton SystemWorks 2004/Personal Firewall 2004 bundle. This is the one that has the $30 rebate coupon.

WARNING: GoBack is TOXIC!

DO NOT install GoBack under any circumstances! It will cause your machine to go into an infinite loop in which it repeatedly reboots itself. Perhaps there is a way to uninstall whatever is causing this but I have no idea what that is. I gave up and reinstalled the entire system, which took about 4 hours.

If you install everything EXCEPT GoBack, then you will probably be okay. The first time AntiVirus came up, it reported many exceptions. However the first live update appears to have fixed the problem.

SystemWorks and Personal Firewall seem to be working fine now. I have heard of others experiencing many more problems than I did, particularly with SystemWorks Professional Edition.

On my copy it says that the rebate applies to purchases made on or before 31 December 2004. However I have seen old stock where this date is 31 December 2003. I wonder if it is the software in the earlier box that has the problems that other users have reported?

I'm not a computer geek - all I want is complete protection against viruses and hackers and Norton gives me just that.
Apparently most of the reviewers have experienced some problems after installing the Norton product, but since I encountered none, I have to wonder if it was the Norton software or something else. Although I have noticed that a decent amount of RAM is helpful in order to prevent Norton from slowing down your computer.
I have been using Norton for the past nine years and never had any virus problems or intrusions on any of my computers. After you install Norton and you can pretty much stop worrying about viruses and hackers. Updating virus definitions is a breeze thanks to "Live Update".
It's just getting better and better over the years. I can only highly recommend this software.

There are two upgrade rebates for this bundle for 2004, one for the Norton SystemWorks, which is listed for this product, and one for the Norton Personal Firewall, which is not, but it is listed under the individual product (Search Norton Firewall 2004).

Combined with the occasional Amazon 'bundle' rebate, you can get this for free. Which, considering some of the reviews, might be what it is worth to you. I haven't had problems other than it slowing down the bootup process, but this was on a fresh install on a new hard drive. It was painfully slow the first couple of days at startup, until XP 'cached' it or something.

Do NOT buy ANY Symantec Product UNLESS YOU WILL NEVER HAVE A NEED FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE - THERE IS NONE! I have just spent 4 hours AFTER HAVING PAID for SUBSCRIPTION RENEWAL to my firewall trying to get my renewal activated. After going through 15 menus on-line to try and email customer service, I was given a form. I entered the info. When I finally got an email response, it had nothing to do with my question, then told me if it didn't help, I would have to REPEAT THE ENTIRE ON-LINE Process! I then called their "Customer Service" line - PUT ON HOLD FOR 30 MINUTES! Finally had to redo renewal by phone without answer to question. This is typical of ANY NORTON PRODUCT CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I have used Norton products for years, and find SystemWorks to be comprehensive and very effective (especially AntiVirus). SystemWorks 2004 is no exception: it works great and requires a minimum of operator interaction on a routine basis. I will say that there are so many features in SystemWorks that navigating the software package is sometimes a chore if you are trying to find a feature that is seldom used. The only other downside is that SystemWorks significantly slows down computer start up time, to a degree that many users (including me) will find annoying. Overall, though, I really like SystemWorks, and find it does what it says it will.

Personal Firewall is a totally different story. I had the 2003 edition of Personal Firewall on my PC (Sony Vaio, Windows XP, Pentium 4) and it worked fine until I attempted to replace it with Personal Firewall 2004. As soon as I loaded Personal Firewall 2004, I got more error messages than I have ever seen in my life from my normally very stable computer. The first major problem was that Firewall did not allow me to connect to my ISP via DSL. After hours of configuring and tinkering, it never would allow a DSL connection (but did allow me to use my dial-up modem). No amount of reading the manuals, technical support, or configuring could free me from the numerous error messages and lack of DSL access. Fortunately when I uninstalled it and did a system restore (Thanks, Windows XP!) I got rid of the mess and DSL was back. Reinstalling repeated the fiasco. I finally gave up on Personal Firewall and got a competing program, which works fine.

In summary, while I like SystemWorks, Personal Firewall is one buggy program and I wouldn't let it near my PC again.

Be aware - there is not a $100 rebate for this product. The $35 rebates are identical and you also must provide proof of purchase, or UPCs from each box. So, since there are 3 rebate forms and only 2 sets of proof of purchase items (one set of UPCs and one set on the inside of the boxes), you will not qualify.

I verified this with Symantec who claims this is a mistake.

Does anyone know different?

Both of these have saved my computer more times than I care to count, or can count for that matter. Somehow a floppy disk of mine was messed up. After consulting my friends who tried various tricks, I remembered the Norton Disk Doctor feature and it fixed the problem like that! *snaps fingers* Awesome, it saved me several days of redoing a school project. Worth every penny and I have recommended this several times.

I see some complaints about the firewall which is suprising because that's the best part, in my opinion. Before I got this, my dad's computer had such bad pop-ups that the internet would freeze, my sister got a nasty virus that required that she wipe her hard drive. And I got some nasty bug that got into my start-up menu and wouldn't let me turn off my laptop without restarting about 5 + times. But ever since we installed the firewall, no one has had a major computer problem. In fact, the subscription is going to expire in a few weeks so I've already bought the 2005 version as a replacement. I see no point in trying out anything else when Norton has given such excellent results for several months!

Ive been a norton user for years and never had a problem with any of their software well this one didnt let me down its great and what else would you expect from norton . If you are in doubt about this product dont be its great and you can sleep better nights knowing your computer is in expert hands thanks again NORTON KEEP ON TRUCKING ....

I would not recommend this software to my worst enemy. When I used its diagnostic and repair software it made the computer worse, rather than making it run faster. It has some weird file rearrangement program, that is obviously antithetical to Microsoft. The last straw was when it wouldn't let me access my ISP to use the internet. The crowning touch was when Amazon.Com charged me a $40 restocking fee, after I returned the damn thing.