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Sayonara, Symantec: The Hopelessness of NAV 2005
After using Norton Antivirus 2002 for several years, when it was time to renew my subscription in December, I was also given the option to upgrade to their new version, NAV 2005. Only 10 bucks more with lots of improved features, so why not? During the installation process, I was required to completely uninstall NAV 2002, a program I had downloaded previously. Fine. After installing NAV 2005 on my XP machine (Pentium III, 256 MB, SP2), I quickly noticed that performance was much slower than before the upgrade - just opening folders and navigating on my hard disk was noticeably slower, as was Web browsing. And then I noticed that I could no longer use my floppy disk drive or my USB flash memory drive. The computer told me that the flash memory as well as any floppy disk I inserted needed to be formatted - untrue - and when I tried to format a floppy, after a long process that sounded like normal formatting, I was told that the disk could not be formatted.
Obviously, NAV 2005 had caused some problem with hardware drivers. I called Symantec tech support and was told that this was impossible, that since they are just a software program that there is no way that it could cause a hardware problem, and that I needed to take my computer into a shop to get repaired. "Hmmm, " I countered, "during my wait time I used XP's system restore feature to set me system back to the point just before I installed NAV 2005 (I had made a system set point then) and now the drives work fine. So it's obviously something to do with NAV 2005." Then I explained to the tech support woman that hardware uses software drivers, and software programs can interfere with drivers, as NAV obviously had done. She couldn't argue with that, and fortunately went from denial mode to troubleshooting mode, but after extensive uninstalls and reinstalls, the problem appeared to be insurmountable.
I ended up speaking with another techie who told me to call Customer Service and get NAV 2004 instead. I did so, but customer service said they were not allowed to sell that - only 2005. I called another person and pleaded to just be given instructions on how to get NAV 2002 back onto my system so I could accept the renewed subscription. After checking with a supervisor, the woman told me that they were so sorry to inform me that they could do nothing to help. Nothing. Sorry, that's policy. They would not let me reinstall NAV 2002. (Perhaps they just didn't keep any backup copies of their software around, since any sane customer support operation would have worked to correct the problems their software "update" had caused and get me back to where I was before, rather than send me to a competitor!) Since NAV 2005 is too buggy (at least for my computer) and bloated to function on my computer, and since they have a policy of not allowing customers to obtain older versions of their software (including the version I previously paid for and was forced to uninstall by them!), I have no choice but to say "Sayonara, Symantec." I asked the customer service representative what software I should install instead, since they were forcing me to go to a competitor after years of being a Symantec customer. Her reluctant answer: McAffee. Maybe that should be your answer, too. SYmantec ought to know, I figure. So now I've got McAffee VirusScan on my computer - and guess what? It works, my drives work, and my system has not ground to a halt. Life is good again, and I don't think I'll ever need Symantec again.
Has anyone else encountered problems with floppy drives or other hardware when using Norton Antivirus 2005? As usual, tech support had "never heard" of my problem, and initially denied that it was even possible. But sometimes I think this is the first thing that tech support or customer service people are trained to say, or else I'm just the only one in the world who encounters problems with various products.