Virus scanner problems
My brother has Norton Anti-Virus 2003 on his PC.
I seem to act as "tech support" for him. In 2004 we extended his subscription for the anti-virus definitions for 12 months, no problem. In 2005 we did it again, no problem. In 2006 we tried again. Problem, problem, problem. The Norton website happily took his money for the extended subscription, but the software didn't seem to take any notice of this and kept the expiration date as being today.
After a bit of clicking about the software directs us to a page that tells us what to do if the subscription thingy has gone wrong... and what it says is we need to uninstall Norton, download and install two things and then re-install Norton from the installer CD. But... oh, by the way, Norton 2003 is no longer supported software so you can't phone the helpline if things go wrong... So we do this and guess what? It still doesn't work. Ok the expiry date has now changed to August 2006, but not May 2007 which it should be.
So that's the current status. It seems we can't enter the new subscription key as Norton doesn't think the current subscription is anywhere near expiry... So there will probably be more to this story in August...
Why can't computers actually be user friendly?
1 Comments:
There was a time, not so long ago, when Norton AV led the way. Now, IMHO, it is bloated, resource greedy, and over-complex. They have been overtaken by a number of alternatives, some of which are FREE.
My advice, for a low maintenace solution for your bro. Cut your losses; uninstall Norton and install the free home version of AVG (http://free.grisoft.com)
You can set it up so it updates (also free) automatically. And will run in the background with minimum system overhead and zero user intervention. (It's compatable with XP SP2 security center too.)
Post a Comment
<< Home