norton systemworks/question 1

[occas]

i made a post, my first one, about my system being slow on startup. takes 4 or 5 minutes to load. i ran a chkdsk as advised. i never did try the recovery console/fixboot option. not lazy, just a little intimidated.

i have norton systemworks 2002 on my machine and it is due for renewal. while browsing for a place to purchase the 2003 or later version. i came across some interesting posts. several posts concerned norton systemworks causing machines to be slow starting.

my machine had no problem until one day i was downloading a page from microsoft.com. it froze all of my windows and i had really no choice(i knew of) but to go to start>shutdown. i had a problem with it doing that and a message from norton saying something about any data not saved would be lost. since then, when i shut down, i always get that same display. it didn't do it before.

makes me wonder if norton is the culprit. i figure i can purchase the new norton systemworks and uninstall the old one. after uninstalling, i can start up with no norton on the machine and maybe see if that is the culprit.

but i am curious as to whether i should just buy the virus protector and not worry about those extra utilities. any comments, tyvm.

 

[bcastner]

Norton Systemworks with all the extras installed will add a good deal of time at startup.

The only application worth using, my opinion, is the antivirus module.

If you upgrade, remove everything from the previous version and install only the antivirus program.

 

[JeffPr]

I will give you my input for what its worth. I ran norton 2002 systemworks and I upgraded to norton 2003 systemworks a few months ago and I will tell you that my computer is slow starting up because of this program. With norton firewall and anti-virus starting up, it defintely takes away from the speed of loading up. But I will trade the slow boot time for the protection that norton offers, I have never had any viruses on my computer that I know of and the firewall has blocked numerous people try to invade my computer, or at least that is what the message said.

Plus the cleansweep program is great, much better than anything windows can offer I think. Am I going to rush out and get systemworks 2004, probably not until my subscription runs out because I am doing just fine with 2003. cdogg told many people about this program called bootvis to speed up the boot time of your computer and a I think it works just great, I noticed a big difference in my booting up time, but you can try it for yourself if you want:

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/2/12-2-1.shtml

"We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future." ~ Max Planck

 

[occas]

going to ask a stupid question. does norton av protect against viruses being downloaded. i know it can check emails and scan my drives. but what about downloads. like for example, downloading the bootvis utility? ty.

 

[wooglin]

So long as the virus definitions are up to date, Norton will block anything whether it be in an email or download. Witnessed it first hand on my brothers computer (heavy Kazaa/WinMX user) and norton would flag and protect from any virus infected files before they even completed downloading.

As for Nortons other functions (I'll admit that Clean Sweep is a good one)... I've gotten addicted to

http://www.jv16.org

- their powertool program is great, and so is the registry cleaning program on it's own. Go for the free trial, use it, then uninstall it. If you leave it on your system it craps out after the 30 days and cannot be reinstalled again.

As for uninstalling Norton 2002, you might want to google for some good info, as I've heard that it's near impossible to remove all traces of Norton once it's been installed.

 

[jurgen36]

Re: Nortons Systemworks. I installed system works 2003 some time ago and found that my own system proceeded at a snails pace. Uninstalling the System Works did not solve the problems. I had to go manually into the registry and delete any reference to symantec. I then installed Panda Platinium and after running a complete system scan it found 4 viry which Nortons AV did not pick up. Nortons was complete up to date with all virus informations. The only thing I do not like with Panda is that every time on the web it upgrades the definitions. Sometimes 3 times a day. Well that is life. Greetings

Jurgen

 

[wooglin]

Woohoo!

Sorry, had to celebrate my first Purple Star. Thanks for the props.

 

[micker377]

Norton 2003 was re-written for XP. I don't know why some people complain about slow start up. I use the full Norton 2003 and my system boots in about 1.5 minutes. Even this is too slow so I use "standby". That comes up in about 15 seconds.

 

[JeffPr]

90 seconds to boot up, you must be running an old computer or something, I also have all the full edition of Norton 2003 and I think my 45 second boot time is too slow, but I have managed to get it down to about 30 seconds so I am happy about that.

"We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future." ~ Max Planck

 

[wooglin]

I'm running XP pro, with Systemworks 2003, but the only norton loaded at startup is the AV. I average 30 seconds also.

One thing though - boot to login screen = 30 seconds, login to the end of start-up is another 30. Is that in line with what you're getting?

Intel 1.9Mobile processor, 512meg of Ram.

 

[bcastner]

1.5 minutes?

The design goals for Windows XP on a typical consumer PC are:

• Boot to a useable state in a total of 30 seconds
• Resume from Hibernate (S4) in a total of 20 seconds
• Resume from Standby (S3) in a total of 5 seconds

If you cleanup your startup programs (such as the Full Norton System Suite) I believe these design goals can be restored.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/default.mspx

 

[wooglin]

I guess that I should consider what the extra time is for - loading netscape into memory for quicklaunch, NIC connecting to external HD, Wireless connecting to router, etc...

Is there any use for Norton Ghost to always be running in the systray? I can't find any way to shut it off other than uninstalling it.

 

[occas]

what is the best way to determine what is really needed to be running when you startup? ty.

 

[fuego007]

To get Ghost out of your system tray, open Regedit and go to: hklm\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run

Find the key that loads Ghost and delete it. Ghost will no longer load on startup. I honestly don't know whay anyone would need Ghost in the system tray when it's so easy to execute form the start menu.

 

[wooglin]

I've got exactly 30 seconds from power button to login screen. Then another 90 seconds until the NICs are loaded which is basically the last thing needed to be able to download mail/surf/etc...

 

[bcastner]

I have 22 seconds from when I turn on my computer to when I can click IE to start the browser.

 

[jferrante]

Hold on a second guys. I've got 44 seconds and I know my computer is fast. Are you guys running jet engines???

 

[bcastner]

Not running the full Norton System Suite.

 

[micker377]

Actually ran start-up with a stop watch:
Start to XP splash screen = 22 seconds
Start to Welcome = 1 min (five seconds to run G0-Back)
Start to usable screen = 1min, 30 seconds.

Not too bad with 10 items in my startup folder, and 29 listed in msconfig_startup.

 

[bcastner]

GoBack = nearly 1 minute itself.
It is a serious drain. I was a big GoBack fan under Win9x and Win2k, but under XP, even with the latest patches to GoBack, it just slooooows everything down.

Test your machine by disabling GoBack. (It should when you do this remove all its history files).

Run with GoBack suspended, depending only on native tools such as System Restore and Driver rollback.

I have not missed it one bit under XP, where I would not run my personal computer under previous OS versions without it.