Me vs. Symantec

I should have learned my lesson about Symantec’s anti-virus products before, but no. I’ve installed various versions of Norton AntiVirus (NAV) over the years, and I always end up removing it because it wreaks havoc on my computer.

Generally what happens is that things start to slow down and act odd, and I’ll jump through hoops trying to figure out what’s wrong. Then something will click and I’ll remove NAV, usually replacing it with McAfee AntiVirus instead.

And my problems disappear.

Well this time I’ve learned my lesson for good not to use Symantec AntiVirus (SAV; which is what it’s now called).

The new computer I’m using had SAV installed. And I said to myself, “I’m gonna speed this computer up by removing that thing.” So I tried, but it asked me for the uninstall password. Huh?

Forget that. I removed the Symantec folders, then used one of my favorite tools, jv16 Power Tools to clean up after it.

But Symantec didn’t take kindly to being removed. It attacked my system. Every time I right-clicked on a file, the Symantec uninstall routine would inexplicably start, then hang up when it couldn’t find the right disk in the drive.

Grr.

I finally had to restart into Safe Mode, remove lots of files lurking around, and then spend literally half an hour manually going through the Windows registry to remove even more traces.

I’m comfortable messing with the registry. But most people aren’t. I don’t know what they would do if they got stuck with a Symantec product.

Finally, all traces gone. I installed McAfee, ran the update, and rebooted. Immediately on reboot it found a trojan lurking in my system and killed it.

So not only was Symantec AntiVirus slowing my system and a nightmare to remove, it also completely missed a trojan that had infected me.

Never, never, never again. I should have stuck with McAfee from the beginning.

So if your system seems to be running a bit slow, or you have occasional odd problems, think about whether you’re running Norton AntiVirus or Symantec AntiVirus. If so, I bet I know how to fix your computer.