Norton Upgrade???

[Jeff Strouse]

I have Norton's AntiVirus 2003 edition on my system. It's time to renew (39.99), but I can upgrade to the 2008 edition for the same price. I know someone who upgraded to the 2008 and he reports his system is running a lot slower since he did that.

My compter is from 2000 (Pent 3, 733 mghz). For what I need it for, I think I can at least squeeze another year of mileage out of it. Should I risk system peformance loss for an upgrade to the 2008 product, or just renew 2003?

Thanks for any help!

[Wiz Feinberg]

I have Norton's AntiVirus 2003 edition on my system. It's time to renew (39.99), but I can upgrade to the 2008 edition for the same price. I know someone who upgraded to the 2008 and he reports his system is running a lot slower since he did that.

My compter is from 2000 (Pent 3, 733 mghz). For what I need it for, I think I can at least squeeze another year of mileage out of it. Should I risk system peformance loss for an upgrade to the 2008 product, or just renew 2003?

Thanks for any help!

First of all, Norton Anti Virus 2003 cannot effectively remove many of the threats that have emerged since 2004. While you may receive updated definitions through your subscription, the engine under the hood isn't configured to run some of the operations required to terminate modern malware infections. Yes, it will tell you the name and location of the Trojan Horse, but that horse is staying inside the gates of Troy unless you upgrade to a bigger, badder tow truck!

Second; Norton is, as you inferred, a performance hog. As the years move on their anti virus program has had to take on a much bigger job; protecting computers against Worms, Trojans, Email Relays, Backdoors, Viruses, Spyware, Fake anti virus applications, etc, etc, etc. To do this NAV has become a resource hog. It carries a pretty big stick and really gets deep into the Windows kernel, which it is charged with protecting.

If you intend to remain a Symantec (Norton) customer, by all means, upgrade to the new version. OTOH, if you want to protect your computer against viruses and such, but at a smaller resource expense, try AVG Anti Virus Free edition. Avast! is also a good free anti virus program. If one of these is able to give you the same level of protection as NAV, as long as you keep them updated daily, you can take the $40 you saved and donate it to the SGF, or buy some strings from b0b.

[Jeff Strouse]

Hi Wiz! Thanks for the advice.

I was considering the AVG, but I've heard that once Norton is on your system, it integrates itself so much that it's very difficult to remove, and that it can cause problems with the new anti-virus???? Since I'm only going to have this system for another year, I wanted to keep Norton for that reason.

My next computer, however, will NOT have Norton! It's not the company it used to be. I even had it in the early 90's, and the Norton Utilites back then was great. But now, the AVG definitely seems like the way to go.

If I install the 2008 upgrade of Norton, do you think the system performing slower will be very noticeable? I guess I could always turn Norton off for short periods when I need the processing speed for another program. I'm more concerned with my hard drive crashing, and losing 220 gigs of info..

[Andy Sandoval]

Just uninstalled Norton's 90 day trial version on my new laptop and installed AVG. Had to first turn off all the Norton programs that were running to uninstall but I believe it's all gone. AVG seems to be workin pretty good so far.

[Jack Stoner]

The last time I removed Norton from a Win XP PC, Norton uninstalled but I had to manually go through the Registry and remove all the Norton and Symantic entries to "completely" remove it. The new antivirus program I was installing still detected Norton (Windows had been restarted before attempting to instlall the new software) on the PC untill the Registry "purging".

I don't hear much good about McAfee either these days. Too bad, both Norton and McAfee were the cream of the crop at one time.

[Al Marcus]

I had Norton for years, and it has been slow and everything like you guys said. Last year I had the Norton System Works and it was awful, I uninstalled it, and yes it was hard to do, Jack.
I do have Norton 2008 antivirus now and it seems to be working and automatically updates most days. So Ill keep it for this year, I have the Disc. The computer is running slower but not too bad.

I have it all clogged up with a lot of songs and programs. I should do a cleanup of some kind, I suppose as has been recommended....al.

[Jack Stoner]

Unless you have the programs running, what you have installed on your PC will have no affect on PC performance. Same way, music files, pictures, etc (any "data') stored on a hard drive have no affect on PC performance, unless you have the hard drive loaded to the point there is no empty disc space for Windows temporary cache.

[Al Marcus]

Jack-Thanks, That is nice to know and I didn't know that. I have a 320GB hard drive and it says I am using over 160GB, so can't use the rest to backup the other half. Is that right?
I'll bet there is programs in my Register that neednt be there, but I don't know which ones, as they dont say in plain english. I probably have Temporary files in there too, that I don't need...al.

[Ken Lang]

I still have McAfee and haven't run into any problems. I installed it on my wife's computer as well.

[Jack Stoner]

Al, you don't want to "backup" to the same hard drive. You want the backup on a different media. If you have the backup on the same drive, e.g. the "C" drive and the C drive fails the backup is also gone.

With that much free space on your hard drive you are fine. The temporary files, although occupying disk space are not really an issue. In days where we had 40 MB hard drives, disk cleanup and what was kept on the hard drive was important. Now, with large gigabyte hard drives most of what was a concern with the small disk drives is really not an issue and does not interfere with the PC's operation. It's still a good practice to periodically run the disc defrag program but even having a "fragmented" hard drive, with the speed of modern CPU's and I/O bus speeds even a fragmented disc does not noticeably slow down a PC like it did years ago with the "slow" CPU speeds.

[Ken Lang]

I hear people talk about ghosting their hard drives for backup. How is that done? Does it require special software, of can windows itself do it?

[Wiz Feinberg]

I hear people talk about ghosting their hard drives for backup. How is that done? Does it require special software, of can windows itself do it?

Windows allows you to make file, folder and settings backups, to be restored to a hard drive that already has the OS installed. It does not produce a "ghost" image. A ghost is a duplicate of everything, including the operating system and all licenses and installed hardware and software.

Ghost is a product made by Symantec, under the brand name Norton Ghost. It produces exact copies of your entire hard drive and stores them elsewhere, for importation during the boot process in the event your hard drive fails.

Acronis True Image is another, less expensive program that does the same, and more. With Acronis you create a bootable floppy or CDR, for use in recovery. Images can be burned to DVDs, or stored on external drives, network drives, online storage, or internal spare or slave hard drives.

All ghosting/imaging software of this ilk allows you to either make an exact copy of the existing hard drive, including wasted space and bad sectors, or a smart copy that only includes the data bearing sectors. Recovery time can be in as little as a half hour, once you have the new hard drive in place and the recovery disk in place.

[Al Marcus]

Jack-Thanks for your info and post. I had a post all ready to send and had trouble getting my ISP to behave and lost it.OR the Forum wouldn't take the submit, maybe it was too clogged up too. I tried to submit 3 times, and was afraid it would double post.

I have an external Hard drive but only 120GB so not enough for my over 160 GB used as of now. I remember wnen we had to clean up our drives. But now with all that storage, we don't seem to have to worry about that so much anymore....al.:)

[Ken Lang]

Wiz. I already have the Acronis backup system you recomended. I have used it. I was just wondering if ghosting was any better or quicker. The Acronis backup files are really big, even if it's only backing up changes. However, I will stick with it.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Wiz. I already have the Acronis backup system you recomended. I have used it. I was just wondering if ghosting was any better or quicker. The Acronis backup files are really big, even if it's only backing up changes. However, I will stick with it.

Ken;
Why don't you buy an external USB 2.0 enclosure with a 250 Gb or larger hard drive in it and use it to store complete Acronis images of your C drive? Most modern BIOSes can be set to boot from an external USB drive, just in case.

[Jack Stoner]

I use Acronis True Image. One comment, I never do "incremental" backups. I always do a complete backup of my main hard drive. I keep two copies of backups on my "backup drive". The current backup and the previous backup.

Where I used to work (before retiring) we tried doing a full backup on Monday's and then daily incremental backups the rest of the week on our Novell servers. As it turned out, if we had to restore a server there was always problems running the incremental backups as the full backup plus the incrementals for each additional day had to be installed and problems always developed. More time was also required to restore a server than just using one full backup to restore. Consequently, the "daily" backup was changed to always doing a full backup, and the most that was "lost" would be whatever transactions occured on the day the server "went down".

Most home (non commercial) PC's do not require daily backups and a full backup isn't that much more. I do backups depending on what has transpired on the PC. e.g. if I get updates or install a new application, after I'm satisfied the updates or new application did not cause any problems and works I'll usually do a full backup. Otherwise a weekly or sometimes bi-weekly backup is all that is required.

But backups are required, not for "if" you will need them, but for "when" you will need them

[Ken Lang]

Wiz. I have done that. I actually have 2, 250 GB external drives. One is used strictly for backing up. I also use it to back up my wife's computer as well.

Jack, you have a good point in doing a full backup each time. Then the previous full b/u can be deleted.

It just seems to take sooo long.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Wiz. I have done that. I actually have 2, 250 GB external drives. One is used strictly for backing up. I also use it to back up my wife's computer as well.

Jack, you have a good point in doing a full backup each time. Then the previous full b/u can be deleted.

It just seems to take sooo long.

So, let the big backups run overnight, while you all are asleep!

[Dave Potter]

I actually have 2, 250 GB external drives. One is used strictly for backing up. I also use it to back up my wife's computer as well.

Jack, you have a good point in doing a full backup each time. Then the previous full b/u can be deleted.

It just seems to take sooo long.

I also am a satisfied Acronis user. It's saved my bacon many times. I've endured the frustration of losing everything and having to start all over again too many times; I don't take chances any more.

I have three 300GB internal hard drives, one for the OS and utilities, one for audio/video, and one for games. In addition to those drives, I also have a USB 2.0 external drive I use for miscellaneous storage and have an Acronis Secure Zone on it which I use to store an image of C: (system) drive. The advantage of the Secure Zone is that it can be accessed prior to Windows loading, immediately after BIOS POST. This is a valuable asset in cases where Windows will not load - just access the Secure Zone and restore the drive image.

I also have a 1.5 Terabyte Firewire 800 external drive which is actually two HDs in one enclosure, running RAID0, which I devote totally to backups of all my other drives, as well as to store exact duplicates of each of the other drives, updated weekly or so.

Have I missed anything important?

[Jeff Strouse]

Well, as usual, I'm learning much more than I thought I would! I love this forum!

Since I lack the tech knowledge, and since Norton has already imbedded itself into my system, I decided to play it safe and got the Norton 2008 upgrade. My system is definitely running slower...startup takes a lot longer, and IE seems to get stuck more. I sure would like to get something like AVG on my next system.

I use an external 160 gig Seagate HD for my important files. Because my system is so old, the USB ports aren't high speed, however, it still saves the files there ok. I could use another, as it is starting to get filled.

[Craig Stenseth]

Jeff, if you have any PCI slots free, a USB2 card (the fast version, I forget if they call it 'high speed' or 'full speed'), is only about $15-20. Search Amazon, etc. for 'USB2 PCI'
See you next month at Joliet.