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Norton Utilities is suck (I think) <Rant>

Zenmervolt

Zenmervolt

Elite member
A couple weeks ago, I decided that my ThinkPad could really use a decent set of Utilities, rather than relying on those included with Windows. Since McAfee hasn't yet gotten around to making a Win 2K utility suite, I decided to give Norton a try and downloaded the time locked version of Norton from Symantec's website. After using Norton for the last couple weeks, I decided that it was neither appreciably faster or better than the tools included in Win 2K (at least Norton wasn't $50 better), so I uninstalled the utility suite. Later that day, Explorer.exe crashed for the first time, and when the computer &quot;came to&quot; so to speak, the folder icons in Explorer had gone from the standard manila icon to a slanted blue icon (almost like the icons here only rotated about 30 degrees and darker blue). For the past two days now, every time I shut down my ThinkPad, I get a message about Explorer.exe not being able to access memory (a different hex location each time, and everything checks out on the IBM diagnostic program) and then a message about Explorer.exe not responding. I've checked for viri, and come up perfectly clean, which leave me with to resort to the ever popular &quot;format c:&quot; method of problem correction. The only thing I did out of the ordinary was uninstall Norton, then all hell broke loose. I know companies don't want people to uninstall their products, but they can at least make an uninstall program that doesn't mess up a computer. :| :| :| :| Anyway, Wish me luck, I'll be putting the restore CD in shortly, and hoping the problem is solved. Thank god for CD-RW drives to make backups of important files.
 
I like Norton's defrag utility, but no matter what you do, it installs all sorts of tentacles and overseers without asking. I installed an absolute minimun assortment of tools (SpeedDisk and Windoctor were all I wanted), only to find that it had installed some sort of new recycle bin gizmo and had at least two unstoppable programs running in the background. Screw that, I uninstalled that crap as soon as it finished optimizing my disk.
 
yep...what Killbat said.

i only wanted norton speedisk and windoctor, and couldn't believe the rest of the crap they force on you.
am running my system happily norton-free now.
 
I just got a copy of Diskeeper 6 so I think I'll be using that as my defragger and maybe I'll pick up a new AV. InoculateIT? So when I reformat I can run without the norton bloatware. Nothing like getting into a CS game then having liveupdate autoconnect
 
I only call on old Norty in times of emergency and peril, for Norty is a moocher who likes to steal you resources when he thinks your not looking. With his smug smile and seemingly trustworthy appearence, you'd never know that he was a vengeful parasite leeching you precious memory as he maniacly laughs to himself. My advice is to kick Norty out of your PC house until all hope is lost then maybe you can use him to recover lost files before you format. My 2 cents.
 
I used to be a diehard Norton Utilities user but then I realized that some of the info they provide is misleading. For example, norton said swap file fragmentation is a big issue (probably only b/c they are one of the few that can defrag swap file) but I have read many other places that the fragmention of swap file isn't a big deal re: performance b/c of 4k clusters. That's just one example, but there are others of instituted needless Norton-induce paranoia. I really don't trust them anymore.
 
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