Norton AntiVirus 2004

Posted by: max in hampshire on 03 December 2003

Hi to all the computer experts - again!

Having recently bought my new pc (running Win XP) on the advice of my ISP, I installed Norton
AntiVirus software. After three weeks of the computer failing miserably and numerous expensive calls to Virgin net I have finally been told that all my problems will go away if I remove Norton. Having done so, to date, all of my problems have gone away.

But I have no protection against viruses etc. Leaving aside the fact that further research suggests it seems to be a common problem with Norton and I don't know how they get away with it, has anyone any suggestions? Is this form of protection really that important? Is there an alternative that works? MaCaffee perhaps?

Any thoughts will be much appreciated.

Cheers

Max

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rasher

HELP!!!!
A few months back I had my PC at home spend forever every time I opened a document (especially an Excell doc). Just took forever to open. I was using XP Home with Norton Internet Security & Anti-Virus 2003. Eventually I just re-formatted the HD and started again, and it now motors like it should, with Norton working very well.
My office PC has just started doing the same thing. I have tried system restore to a time when it was OK, but to no effect. When I open a file, it says at the bottom bar "requesting virus scan..." If I disable all Norton applications, it still says "requesting virus scan..." So is this not a Norton scan but something else? I can't help but feel that this is the culprit. Is it a Windows anit-virus app that I don't know about? Office PC is using XP Pro.

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by anselm

AVG, AVG. AVG, AVG, AVG, AVG.
NUFF SAID AND ITS FREE WITH REGULAR UPDATES

Anselm

all art is contemporary; it is the way we look at it that changes...

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rasher

quote:
Originally posted by PR:
Try turning off your network/internet connection, does Word speed up?

Don't use powerpoint, but certainly with word & Excel. I will try with the network off when I get in tomorrow. Thanks PR.

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rich Cundill

Rasher

I have had exactly the same problem i.e. Office apps taking an age to open due to requesting virus scan. Anyone know what the hell is going on? It just started today.....

Rich

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rich Cundill

Rasher/All

Just found this on a symantec newsgroup = works for m as well - noone seems to know what the real problem is though

"go to miscellaneous
section" and unchecked "enable office-plug in" and saved the change. i went
to open word and it opened like it did before.

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Roy T

This link to a /. artical suggests that the Norton problem is one of many caused by a Knacked Verisign, click the link and see what else is broken.

Roy

Verisign Certificate Expiration Causes Multiple Problems

We had to do a little sleuthing today. Many readers wrote in with problems that turned out to be related. A certificate which Verisign used for signing SSL certificates has expired. When applications which depend on that certificate try to make an SSL connection, they fail and try to access crl.verisign.com, the certificate revocation list server. This has effectively DOS'ed that site, and Verisign has now updated the DNS record for that address to include several non-routable addresses, reducing the load on their servers. Some applications affected include older Internet Explorer browsers, Java, and Norton Antivirus (which may manifest itself as Microsoft Word being very slow to start). Hope this helps a few people, and if you have other apps with problems, please post about them below.

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rich Cundill

Seem to have fixed it. I did a liveupdate and then have rechecked 'enable office plug-in' and office files seem to open at same speed they used to. The NAV application itself still takes too long to open though.....

Rich

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rasher

Right..
PR, you are spot on. Disconnecting the network solves the problem. So what does that mean then?
Rich, strange that you have the same problem only today like me.

Posted on: 08 January 2004 by Rasher

PR, Roy T, Rich.
You guys are brilliant. I'm here in the office just after midnight and you have just saved me from tearing my hair out for another day. All fixed. I owe you.