caught in a Norton Protection Center loop

[dan2229]

My Norton Protection Center keeps flagging "Urgent Attention: 1 item is affecting your status." I have updated five or six times, but the NPC keeps telling me that there is one item that needs attention, and it goes right back to Live Update.

After four or five times of this, I got the most recent SpyBot Seacrh and Destroy 1.5 and ran it. Found lots of junk and fixed them all.

Then I did the Live Update again, but the NPC still says there is a problem.

Any ideas?

Daniel
HP Pavilion a1600n dual processor and XP Home.

 

[HughLerwill]

Please see thread779-1423716

 

[HughLerwill]

I suggest you abandon Norton and use AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware. On the firewall front get yourself behind a firewalled router and use Windows Firewall too.

 

[jurgen36]

Yes I back Hughtlerwill as well. Norton AVG generates more problems as it solves. It does a pretty poor job in detecting a virus and also slows the whole system down considerable. I now use AVG and stopped all problems, actually AVG found 6 malware programs which nortons ignored. However Norton avg is very hard to remove. You really have to get into the registry for a complete removal.
Greetings

Jurgen

 

[electronicsfreak]

This makes life much easier. Norton removal tool

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[Mits07]

Anybody with over 10 years experience and most serious web forums would also recommend total removal. Before buying a new AV solution try before you buy and check their memory and system overhead. Make sure to check on ESET NOD32 AV (after many years of use, it puzzles me why this is not the #1 choice of tek-tips members) and also try the new ESET Smart Security, which I think is the future.

 

[linney]

Eset's NOD32 is an excellent virus scanner which I used for many years. What pointed me elsewhere was the fact that I really never had any serious problems with viruses (other than the occasional false positive). After years of finding nothing, I decided to save the license renewal fee and move to a free virus scanner.

 

[harebrain]

My Norton Protection Center keeps flagging "Urgent Attention: 1 item is affecting your status."

I had the very same problem two weeks ago, except it would then refuse to let me download the update. Other than that, same loop.

I came to the same solution others have recommended here: scrap Norton. That's painful, because I have 9 months left on my subscription. But what good is a subscription that doesn't deliver?

Slicked my HD, re-installed OS, installed Zone Alarm suite (preferences will vary) and problem solved. No support is another good reason to ditch Norton.

Oh, yeah, I wrote to Symantec about the problem: no response.

 

[dan2229]

Oddly enough, when I went through and got rid of a few programs I never used, the problem resolved itself.

NPC now shows green every time I boot, and I am no longer directed to update.

It has worked OK for a couple of days. Next time it asked to be updated, I'll know if it is going to work or not.

Daniel

 

[harebrain]

Ah, the old post hoc, ergo propter hoc* fallacy. Maybe Norton fixed their bugtastical update instead.

(*Happened after this, therefore because of this.)