Customer Reviews

PC-Cillin Internet Security 2007 - 3 User [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

Like many of the other reviewers, I was a big fan of Trend Micro's Anti-Virus software.... I found it to be superior to Norton's product in many ways. I upgraded to their Internet Security 2007 and my computer has slowed to a crawl... and if you google "Trend Micro cpu utilization" or read the other reviews you will see that I'm in good company.

I called their company 800# on Thanksgiving day and they answered with no delay (I guess it's not a big holiday in India...). The tech - Mike - told me that the product is not compatible with internet explorer's latest edition and that a patch would be available in early 2007. He said that if I used Firefox as a browser there would be no problem -- but there still is.

I am going to take his final advice -- uninstall the software and return to just the anti-virus product. Too bad -- they had a great brand name until this piece of garbage software. My suspicion is they rushed it out to complete with Microsoft's new Live One Care ... which also offers 3 licenses per package.

Caveat emptor!!

After two good years with the 2005 and 2006 versions of Trend Micro PC-Cillin Internet Security, I proceed to perform my yearly upgrade to the 2007 version prior to renewing my virus subscription.

Alas, the user experience of the 2007 version was so inferior to the preceding two years' that I uninstalled it and went to a competing product (Kaspersky).

The problem began when I displayed 2007's control panel / user interface. A new and entirely unwanted right-side panel for supplementary network services automatically appeared each time I started the user interface. Worse yet, there was no user-accessible control for preventing it from opening every time I started the u.i. An email exchange with Trend, requiring two days to complete, was necessary to learn which key in the Windows Registry I needed to edit to turn this darn "feature" off.

Next, and unlike the preceding two years' versions, I started having problems with erratic startup. Sometimes all of Trend 2007's necessary Windows services would start at boot, sometimes they wouldn't. If they didn't, I had to bang around the Windows services tool to kick them into life. Even then, parts of the u.i. remained unavailable unless I shut the program completely down and restarted anew. What a pain!

So I began two-day email exchange number two. This time I was directed to use a special uninstall utility to *completely* remove the existing build of 2007, download a newer build, and install a "fixed" version. Okay, that fixed the erratic startup problem but the email exchange with Trend Micro burned up another two days not to mention the time I spent uninstalling / reinstalling / editing the Windows Registry / etc.

Finally, I started to explore all the new 2007 features. Oops -- I received an "invalid instruction address" error message when I tried to open a particular feature's controls.

Once again a two-day email exchange with Trend support was necessary. Once again I downloaded a putatively newer build, used the utility to uninstall the old build, and installed a third updated version. Alas, the identical error presented itself when I went to the u.i. controls for the feature.

Well, since I need to use my computer as a tool of work I had no more time to spend debugging Trend's software for it. So, feeling a combination of anger ("why won't it work?") and sorrow ("idiots, why did they have to wreck a good product?"), I uninstalled and installed a competing product.

Trend Micro Internet Security 2007, unlike my 2005-2006 versions, simply wasn't usable. My experience was that Trend went just a bit too far with new and not necessarily useful features and not far enough with the quality assurance necessary to ensure that all the features worked...

Absolutely kills my PC's and laptops (typically a 2.2Ghz CPU with 2GB of RAM) with a process named PcScnSrv.exe alone using over 85% of CPU continually, and 120 MB+ memory, just for this process. Trend Micro PC-Cillin Internet Security 2007 is terrible. I've used PC-Cillin since version 2003, and until this version it has been a good product. Even 2006 was fine. 2007 is a bomb, so do not purchase it or upgrade it. Just delete your registry keys for Trend and reinstall your 2006 version, and you will be better off, until Trend Micro fixes this disastrous problem. I've been working with technical support every day (the "Customer Escalation Team") since 04/05/2007, with no end in sight so far, and it is now 06/04/2007!

After I, and my clients, got bombed badly by Norton products(this includes McAfee); I tried the trial versions of almost every major competitor in this market. None compared to PC-cillin 2006. So I thought 2007 would be better - right? Wrong! For all the reasons you see in the reviews others provided for this product. BUT!!

I was out of money and there was NO GOING BACK, so I bit hard and slaved over this new version until I could get it to work. For anyone brave enough to try this product now, I make the following suggestions:

1. Clear any AND ALL AV or anti-spyware out of your computer before install. Some geeks also like to use msconfig to stop all unnecessary services.

2. If you reinstall any previous AV/Anti-Spyware solutions, do not use/enable their BHOS or registry protection features[this includes such things as "immunizers", "tea-timer", or "ad-watch"]. PC-cillin will not tolerate any competition in this area. Do an update, scan, and remove only, before next step.

3. Just to be sure (if you are lucky and have a hardware firewall) do a Trend Micro Housecall, Bitdefender, or comparable online scanner to clean out any previous infections. Unfortunately, although Trend is good at finding just about anything - it is not always good at removing the bad stuff; so you should do it in safemode with restore turned off and all files uncovered. Of course you need to be in an administrative mode to do this right. Don't forget to re-enable system restore and hide system files after reboot.

4. Install IS 2007, update, scan again. I have found it is better to update the spam controls through the Outlook applet [Trend spam bar], for those that have Office 2003. This also may be why some are having trouble building the anti-spam casch. I do this on the restricted account that has the email installed.

I have had much less trouble using IS 2007 since; but I still do occasional scans using Spybot S&D and AdAware SE for good measure. They can sometimes remove and find things PC-cillin can't. I have had no furthur IE 7 issues. Trend's support had been good to me.

Tried the TrendMicro trial of Pc-Cillin after reading many Amazon and other reviews of the 2007 version. They were right, it took about 150 mb RAM on a 512 mb RAM system using Win 2000 Pro..really pretty inefficient! Granted, the real-time antispy has been beefed up quite a bit, but at what a cost..the 2006 version uses less than half that amount of RAM, plus the 2007 version uses about double the hard drive space to boot..! Stick with Pc-Cillin, but use the 2006 version until they tame this thing down a bit. From what I've read there's a refresh build coming out some time in January 2007, try it out then..

After owning two previous version of this product it was a no-brainer to upgrade - or so I thought. Installation was a breeze and everything seemed to be up and running fine until I noticed my computer was running very slowly. I opened Task Manager and noticed that CPU usage was pegged at 100% and the culprit process was PcCillin. I reinstalled, no change. I looked on Trend's FAQ and Knowledgebase, nothing. I didn't have time to call support during their hours, so I filled out a support ticket online. I got an autoresponse soon afterwards and then heard nothing for almost a week. I sent an email complaining and got a response the next day with two fixes to try. I tried them both and neither worked so I replied to the support email asking for more help. After more than a week I still haven't heard back and I've officially written off the $40 I spent on this software. I'm now using the FREE version of Avast and everything is fine. Sorry Trend Micro - you had a customer for life and now you've lost a customer for life.

I am absolutely amazed that this piece of garbage was shoved out the door for sale to the consumer. Read my reviews, see how I praised the last 2 years of this product. I was happy to upgrade when I received the email from them. It's such a great product, I had no qualms for upgrading every year.

I downloaded the new installer and viola! the problems started. First off, this program requires you to uninstall older versions of the previous product. Well I was a happy user of PC-Cillin 2006 and thought no problem. Big mistake! Their uninstaller couldn't rid my system of all of the files so every time I ran the installer I was told another version existed on my computer and I needed to uninstall. Guess what? The uninstaller cleared out enough files that it couldn't launch the uninstaller for 2006. What a joke! It took a special uninstaller from the company to clear out all of the garbage. I should have known right there that 2007 was going to be a disaster. To my surprise (not really) 2007 would not install/load properly. And the best part? It cleared out my 2006 so I had nothing to go back to.

Can you say ZoneLabs Internet Security? I can, did and I'm not looking back!

How does garbage like this get out to the market? Steer clear if you value your PC.

I have used PC-Cillin for years. I purchase it for home and for my place of business. Won't even go into the various speeds, etc. on the six computers its installed as they all vary but will say the OSs are XP Home or Pro. The result on every machine has been the same. Does the term pregnant pause ring a bell? After I'd installed the program at home I kept rebooting because everything, and I mean everything, I tried to do had the same reaction. Click. Wait. Wait more. I thought it was because I'd downloaded version 2007. It wasn't. The program may stop viruses but I work faster than the program. My frustration level escalates with every key stroke. Do I recommend PC-Cillin anymore? The answer is a resounding NO. Looks like PC-Cillin is joining that ever growing group of no like - no use security suites. I'm trying Zone Alarm as I've already been there, done that, with McAfee & Norton. I gave it two stars because it went from a five star (version 2006) program to one I will never again purchase in only one version "upgrade".

I have been a PC-Cillin user for a few years. My original reason for switching to that product is because NORTON had become a resource hog and I needed a security suite that would not tax my system.

The 2005 and 2006 versions of PC-Cillin performed very well on my computer. Without any noticeable strain on my resources, the program worked silently in the background and was able to catch many viruses that were being sent through my email. To be honest, I was becoming a huge fan of PC-Cillin and had even purchased their 3-user license to protect all the computers in my home.

Last month I installed their 2007 suite. I noticed soon after that my computer would suddenly disconnect from the Internet after a few hours of use. I have Verizon Fios, a broadband service that has never been known for disconnects. After installing a new NIC card I discovered that it wasn't any hardware issues causing this problem -- it was PC-Cillin! As soon as I removed the 2007 version and switched back to 2006, my sudden Internet disconnect problems disappeared.

I'll echo other comments made on this page in saying that the 2007 version was rushed to release and that there are bugs that should have been worked out. Unfortunately, when you release buggy product like this, you anger people and they look for better products. In this case, I'm going to look at Kapersky or perhaps Zone Alarm.

Sorry, Trend Micro, you had me as a dedicated user until you released product that was not ready for prime time.

Others have stated clearly the problems with PC-Cillin 2007. I experienced this first hand on Nov 26 when I went to renew my subscription to 2006, and the 2007 version was offered for free with the renewal. I downloaded and installed on my guinea pig PC (windows xp 1.7 gHz celeron 512 MB ram notebook).

It was immediately apparent what a CPU hog 2007 is. I left the machine idle for 30 minutes and it was still periodically at 100% utilization without any application running. Start an application and it stayed at 100% utilization for an agonizingly long time, whether you were starting IE or Word. Web pages were taking 30 seconds to load over broadband that had previously downloaded in a second.

Checking active processes, something called 'PcScnSrv.exe' was the culprit. It's part of PC-Cillin 2007. Searching for this term along with 'pc-cillin 2007 performance problems' brings up a lot of negative information.

I uninstalled 2007. That was ugly too, PC hung up.

To make matters worse, there is no defined way of simply renewing the subscription for PC-Cillin 2006. It requires reinstalling 2006 with the new serial number to gain another 12months virus definitions using the old product.

After doing this on my guinea pig PC, I simply altered (hah!) the serial number on 2 other PCs that share the license to the new serial number via editing the windows registry (I don't recommend this if you're not familiar with it already).

PC-Cillin 2006 is a memory hog. It required expanding memory from 256mb to 512mb and significantly increases boot times, but it's a good product outside of this. PC-Cillin 2007 is a disgrace.

Update: 12/16/06

I uninstalled PC-CIllin 2006 as it failed to remember the subscription renewal when downloading virus list updates requiring intervention. This was on all the PC's where it was being used. It may be it didn't like multiple users using the same serial number (it is a 3 user license).

Anyway after uninstalling 2006, I tried 'avast' free home user anti-virus.
It doesn't have the suite of tools PC-Cillin has and doesn't automatically run a virus scan (you have to start this manually with the free version).

But the machines run better than they have in a long time. Reviews around the internet show it to be more effective in virus detection while using less of your machine's resources.

I really can't say enough bad things about PC-Cillin, especially the 2007 version.

Download their trial version before paying for it, whatever you do. But beware: uninstalling it creates problems. It's not clean.

I wasted my money. sigh...

Update 12/31/06:
I've commented elsewhere PC-Cillin has a conflict with Spybot Search and
Destroy (common anti-spyware/malware software available for free download). It's a given that people having performance problems have tried spybot like I did. TM has discovered this and documented a work-around on their support pages.

TM should have caught this conflict during testing. If they had I'd still be a customer. As it is I've switched to AlWil's free Avast home user anti-virus along with spybot.