[pchelpers] Removing Norton Antivirus ASAP

Hi Re-Na and John and everybody else

If you have a nondescriptive subject like Re-Na's original (Can you
reply asap please?), your post is harder to find a few weeks from now,
and people reading your thread now are forced to unnecessarily read
through a lot of text before they even know what the thread is about.

It would be good if list members got into the habit of reading and
responding to the newest messages first to avoid confusion and
frustration in the person looking for help. This is often impossible if
the newest message is only discussing some detail and doesn't have a
descriptive subject.

John, have you ever though about making an FAQ for this list? This could
include basic information about how to ask a question effectively and
how to answer and quote in a way that helps the questioner most and
frustrates the questioner and other helpers as little as possible. It
could also include a list of abbreviations to use in the subject like
ASAP and OT to make life easier for all list members.

> My father in law got a new Dell laptop.  He did not purchase antivirus 
> software from Dell.  No 'free trial' antivirus software was offered.  
> Apparently it has Norton software on it though.

This is exactly was is meant with free trial antivirus software.

> Well, each time he turns on his pc he gets a popup from Norton about 
> antivirus.  I don't know what it says, just that he is annoyed with the 
> popups.  

Next time anyone has this kind of situation, *please* take the time to
read what such a message says. This will prevent a lot of frustration
and unnecessary guessing and many unnecessary emails by the person being 
annoyed by the message and all helpers. I remember seeing that Norton 
popup when i got my Acer. It said in plain English that i need to click 
on it to activate the program. It should also say how to get rid of it, 
but doesn't. If your father-in-law had known his consumer rights when he 
called Norton or Dell, he could have demanded free removal of this 
Norton spam.

The only half excuse for Dell's insane offer to help only if they get 
250 $ is that they have the "right" to assume even new computer users 
should have spent enough time to read the computer manual to know how to 
uninstall a program (control panel's add or remove programs!).

> I had told him how to go to his start menu and uncheck it.  

We later learned that you were not at all talking about unchecking 
something in the start menu but about unchecking something in the 
program msconfig. Disabling a program from starting in msconfig is 
usually not a good idea except for diagnostic purposes. It's best to do 
that by removing the entry from the startup folder in the start menu's 
program list. If the program is not there, it's best to use this or a 
similar program: www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

In any case, it's usually not a good idea to disable a program that you 
don't want; it's better to uninstall it.

> Apparently this did not work as he wants me to call him and over the 
> phone tell him how to get it to stop.

I'd be interested in knowing what you told him to uncheck in msconfig. 
Maybe Norton's ad has become so obnoxious that it ignores being disabled 
  in msconfig and respawns in the best tradition of malware, or maybe 
you suggested something that should not be disabled.

> He called Dell today and was told it was $250.00 for 'software support' 
> for them to 'walk him thru the steps'.

This definitely places Dell on the level of rogue antispyware programs 
and other scam artists because Dell is demanding money to get rid of a 
Norton advertisement that Dell gets paid to allow on its computers.

> He's wanting me to call him now. 
> 
> Other than having him go to add/remove programs and remove Norton, is 
> there anything else I should tell him???  <Please, Dell bashing.  He had 
> other options but wanted to purchase a Dell.>

I suppose you meant "Please NO Dell bashing" :-) I hope my stating the 
facts about what they're doing to poor people like your father is not 
yet what you'd call bashing. On the contrary, people who spend the time 
to publicly criticise companies are more like unpaid corporate 
consultants and an outsourced voluntary R&D department, and this is no 
joke. Most companies nowadays purposely send out products whose 
development and testing stage is about half way done compared with a few 
decades ago. They rely on consumers to tell them what's wrong, and most 
consumers don't realise that that is why most companies are so friendly 
and willing to replace a product when something doesn't work. They don't 
really care anymore if their products work or not; they just want 
customers to keep buying their products, and the trick is simple: giving 
consumers the feeling that buying this company's product is no risk 
because they can get a new one or their money back if it doesn't work.

These things only get better if people are aware of what is being done 
to them and then complain. Most users think they did something wrong if 
they're computer is acting up, and many don't realise that competition 
is so fierce that computer manufacturers respond surprisingly quickly to 
public criticism and especially direct feedback from customers.

Sounds like your father-in-law was really being driven crazy by this 
Norton ad. Otherwise you wouldn't have been posting a message that 
sounded as urgent as a virus-infected computer when in fact the problem 
was only a nuisance and not one that even prevented use of the computer.

I'd suggest he at least tell the store where he bought the computer 
about his bad experience. In most countries, the store is responsible 
for problems with the product and the consumer has the right but not the 
obligation to contact the manufacturer. Most stores are also interested 
in not losing a customer and in not losing many more if they don't treat 
an unhappy one well. I'm pretty sure the store would be very happy to 
get rid of the Norton popup ad and to uninstall the dormant preinstalled 
Norton antivirus program. And since this is a laptop, it's easy for your 
father to take it back to the store.

In any case, if anyone wants to get rid of Norton itself or just the ad 
for it, it's best to use the normal control panel method. Only if that 
causes problems will it be necessary to go to the Symantec/Norton 
website to follow the manual removal instructions:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2004110113064039?Open&src=bar_sch_nam&docid=2004010508323006&nsf=nav.nsf&view=5faa3ca6df6f549888256edd0061c0a4&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/529c2f9adcf33a1088256e22005026f1/a4d3327506ae7c5f88256b81007b7487?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam

Just the other day, i had to manually uninstall Norton because a friend 
couldn't do it himself and the new version didn't install due to 
remnants of the old. They lost many customers because he will be telling 
all acquaintances about his experiences and lost hours, and he got his 
money back from the store.

I have heard about the horrible problems and time wasted when people try 
to uninstall Norton because it's so sloppily made since Symantec bought 
it that the uninstall routine doesn't work, but most people seem to be 
able to uninstall it without any problems if it hasn't been really 
installed yet and is only preinstalled and not doing more than producing 
the reminder/ad to subscribe.

There are exceptions to that too though as shown here:
http://blogs.chron.com/helpline/archives/2005/10/how_to_remove_n.html





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