Uninstalling Norton Causing Changes to User Views

Have a "issue" that I've never seen before... I had a customer of mine uninstall Norton for a host of reasons. that went OK, but when it told him to reboot, and when he did, the user settings were ALL changed... His documents were now listed under TEMP instead of his name (under the documents and settings). All his information was still there, but all his programs were pointing to a different location than where all his information was, his desktop was changed, screensavers, themes, etc...

I opened all his program (i.e. Word, Excel, etc...) and changed the default settings of where the programs needed to look to open files, etc... but when the computer was shut-down, then restarted, it was back to where we were before all the modifactions were made... What the heck is Norton doing I've been unable to find a quick solution to this, other than each time going in and changing the program defaults... Does anyone have a similar problem? and/or solution??

(ANOTHER great reason to get rid of norton anything...!!!)

 

**NOT** -- Weird things happen on PCs sometimes, regardless of brand of software used. I've been using Symantec / Norton products on my system for years and years and never heard of such a thing.

It's one thing to seek help for a problem, and I sympathize with that, but please keep your software bashing to yourself, please.

Does your friend have any backup of his system before the problem arose?

 

I second that and I sincerely hope this friend has a backup or snapshot, otherwise he needs to be educated.
Never work without a backup of your harddisk(s), even when you don't have an internet connection.

 

Thanks for the replies...

As to the software bashing, I've read/seen worse in other threads within wilderssecurity.com, BUT that was not my intent of that, or this post...

The customer tried to restore, but that did not help the issue. After further review/research, I have determined that it is a corrupted profile. The solution was to create a new profile, move all the customer's file from the corrupted profile into the new one, then delete the offending profile. As to the weird things that happen on a PC, again, I'm well familiar with that, but the only "change" in the entire system (during a very specific timeframe) was the uninstalling of Norton...

 

Has the customer run recent Windoze updates?

I had a strange problem within the last few weeks, I expect the result of Windoze, or maybe adetect and repair of Office 2003, I know know what the cause.

On my multiboot system, I have ALL the OS share things such as My Documents, Temp, Cookies, etc. And each is in a location I've specified, not th edefault.

Well, after a reboot, I noticed two weird things:

1. The desktop icon for My Documents was no longer pointing to the correct My documents, instead it was pointing to what would have been the original default. In this case, all I had to do was reset the properties of the My Documents icon.

2. The Temp direcory had added directories for Cookies, Local Settings, etc. All I had to do was delete those and there seemed to be no effect on my own settings for the critters.

So, maybe your customer got bitten by the same bug that bit my system?
at least the fixes were easy.

 

Hello Howard,

No, the customer didn't even have the auto-update feature running (that has since been changed/modified), but your problem/issue is similar... for you, try looking at profiles also... that was my solution. many reboots later, no other problems with any additional changes (including after much needed updates of security patches, etc... from M$)

 

I NEVER, knowingly, allow ANY software to automatically update, or even to check for updates.

I did not have any setting changed, other than the one for My Documents.
Everything else seems OK, until the next time ...!

 

I understand but your last comment surely expressed prejudice against all Symantec products {that they should not exist or should be removed from all PCs, was the way I took it}. As you say, that wasn't the gist or intent of your post, which really was to seek help. Glad you seem to have gotten on track to resolving this weird problem-glitch. Sorry if I overreacted but hopefully maybe my response helped get your thread rolling and get some help. That would be a good and positive thing instead of our bickering with one another. I have, myself, been for longtime trying to tactfully discourage anti-Symantec / anti-Norton postings in this forum; actually I try to discourage any prejudiced postings {against whatever brand or vendor}, and I think our moderators do the same {albeit I'm sure they do it a lot better than myself and with greater effect}. Anyway, my apology if I got OT with my comments, and glad you have gotten on the path to resolution of the problem.

 

There's nothing wrong with making negative comments about a product/company.

SinAndTech's deterioriating support in recent years makes them a fair target, tho I believe that their software is a lot better than a lot of folkes state, and if one keeps alert, at least in the USA, much of the software can be obtained at low, if any, cost after rebates.

 

Thanks to all who replied... I do appreciate the help, and am happy to provide any answers that come from sources outside of the forum (if I get them before someone here does)... In this case, the solution was actually easier to solve than originally thought... although I'm sure that was only a fluk ;-)

Thanks again.