Norton 2009 Beta

Couple of years a go i was a Norton Beta tester but then i always had to format my computer because thouse beta's ****ed up my computer. They uninstallation proces was also a mess. Is this now still the case or can i start beta testing without having to reinstall windows?

 

beta testing any software is risky and i wouldnt reccomend it without using imaging software to image c: before beta testing. i always image before beta testing and restore it when im done.

 

Indeed. I image every day so if malware attacks, I revert to the pre-attack state with a saved image. That is also the only sure-fire anti-virus protection as well.

 

I stopped all infectitons as well, I stopped turning on the computer & using the internet & stopped going to forums...whoops...

 

Ya but I know you are lying so, use the image program instead.

 

That is horrible.
Sorry guys, forgot about the forum these days...
Can anyone tell me how long subscription lasts?

 

All of this positive talk about Norton 2008 and 2009 beta has piqued my interest. My hesitation to use it in the past has always been due to the nightmares people have had when trying to uninstall it. Has this (uninstallation) been improved? Thanks in advance.

 

Not really- a lot is left behind in Norton 2008, and even with the NIS 2009 beta. Have to use CCleaner and hand delete several other files that are not deleted. Still not a complete uninstall as of this date.

 

Wird. I have one registry leftover with 2009 and two with 2008. Thats all.

 

maybe you can report that to symantec?
so there is nothing left behind

 

Then you have a different version of the program. There were many files and registry entries left over after uninstalling NIS 2008- and this was after using the Norton Removal Tool. There is no such tool for the NIS 2009 beta by the way.

 

There is plenty left behind- install/uninstall NIS 2008, then run Norton Rermoval Tool and then run CCleaner and look at what is left behind. In addition, it leaves at least one file folder even after CCleaner. I have done this dozens of times, and nothing has changed. You cannot obtain a clean uninstall- period. They don't want to allow you to rid yourself of their signature.

 

I can't think of an AV program that doesn't reg keys or files/folders behind after uninstall. It's not just Norton...

 

True it is not just Norton, but I was refuting the statement from someone else that just a couple items were left behind. However, there are no registry key remnants with Avira or Dr. Web.

 

not sure about Avira but, DrWeb does leave on key behind. A winsock one under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE

 

Not on my machine, but I am talking about after running CCleaner. Norton leaves entries/files after running CCleaner.

 

Whats the point of your post if its after ccleaner?
How is it norton's fault that ccleaner can't find its entries?

 

What's the point of illogical comments? You reverse cause and effect. The entries are caused by Norton's inability to remove them. If they did not exist, CCleaner's inability to remove them would be irrelevant.

 

NAMOR posted dr.web also left entries which is why i said its pointless for you to complain that ccleaner did not find entries.

 

Norton 2009 has a completely re-written installer. It does NOTuse the Microsoft MSI technology anymore. The only keys that should be left behind are licensing related, and thats in order to help users that want to reinstall the product from not having to re-enter the keys again which they might have already misplaced.

 

You mean "...does not use the MSI installer."?

 

And no doubt to prevent people from installing again after a trial has expired. Thats the main reason software doesn't uninstall cleanly.

 

Well, no... E.g., SEP 11 requires no license. You just install it. Uninstalling it via Add/Remove problems (if it doesn't fail altogether which is more often the case than not) leaves tons of registry crap behind, including the infamous Teefer2 driver which kills your network connectivity completely after reboot. The product also usually screws remote access due to its inability to reset RasMan settings.

If you want to prevent users from abusing trial stuff, you simply write some undocumented crap into reserved disk areas, problem solved. Simply put - Symantec has always miserably failed to use Windows Installer properly. Maybe they should have hired someone from M$ to teach them.

 

You must really have been unlucky with your rig(s). The horror stories you write in this forum, is VERY FAR AWAY from my experiences with the program. We've been using it on my work (on 40+ workstations and a couple of servers) for quite some time now and never had any troubles with it. Uninstalling it or modifying it, have never made me any troubles as well.


Cheers

 

Both of the issues I've mentioned are documented by Symantec - RASMAN screwup here. What they don't document is the screwup on x64 systems where they "restore" the registry values which point the RasMan DLLs to %SYSTEMDRIVE%\SysWOW64 instead of %SYSTEMDRIVE%\System32, making it plain non-functional (this again speaks volumes about the quality of x64 support in their products).

The nasty Teefer2 driver doesn't get catched even by their supersecret CleanWipe tool.

Consider yourself lucky and be glad you didn't waste days and days on debugging their products.