XP & Norton Utilities?? Good or Bad?

[HulaMike]

As I'm starting with a virgin computer I want to get advice on whether or not to install the full Norton System Works utilities on this XP system. In the past (WIN98) I was told it was a bad idea, that Norton interfered with the OS in some disturbing way, that it would be btter to use native WIN utilities to defrag HDs and do disk checks and to just use the Norton anti-virus part of the package. True or false??

Your comments greatly appreciated!

[Swampy]

As you mentioned earlier, :rolleyes: your friend that you talked to rolled his eyes about it and for good reason. While Norton has a few nice products out, it's pretty much limited to Anti-virus. :) NAV is about the only Norton product I would use. The rest are "I wanna make money from useless software" packages.

All you need is a good AV program, the windows built in defrag program and the built in error-checking program (which is something that you'll not really need really either - but just in case). I guess I should add that you should run a anti-spyware program on a regular scedule as well. Ad-aware or Spybot work well for removing dataminers and other spyware programs that get installed by using IE just from browsing the web. Depending on how much web browsing you do and how many different places you cruise will tell you how often to run this. I don't do much browsing and run mine about every 2 weeks to find about 30 data miners. One of these days, I'll do the smart thing and not use IE. Maybe go with Mozilla or something. No pop-ups, no security problems (at least not like the (sure seems) wide open IE anyway).

[deMille]

Agreed on Norton and dumping IE.

I use Mozilla FireFox for browsing and Mozilla Thunderbird for mail. They are two separate programs that way but very fast/efficient because of it. Superior security and control in every way. If you wish to have both mail and browsing in one program, Mozilla 1.7 at mozilla.org is an excellent way to go. It is complete, simple to configure and use, more secure, faster, and not helping to maintain MS's grip on the world's ______!

As an aside; I prefer Windows 2000 Pro over XP every time. I find color control is superior with less hassle, security is better (considering it is still Microsoft) and at least a little bit less bloatware. If Linux would run the programs I usually use I would switch to it as primary OS without question. As it is, I use it for almost everything except imaging. I won't state any further opinion on Microsoft ... they're listening! ;o)

[HulaMike]

Thanks Swampy and DeMille. Mozilla looks like the way to go.

[Wichita Wayne]

I have used NU so long that I remember calling for technical support and speaking directly to Peter Norton. (This was back when I was still using Edlin to write batch files.) He said that he only had 10 employees, 8 software engineers and 2 admin, and all 8 engineers had to pull support duty. He helped solve my trouble and also turned me on to his new program called the Norton Editor (Goodby Edlin). I used his editor for the rest of my DOS days. Peter does not have much to do with the company any more and I hear he is in ill health. But I have used Norton stuff for years. I normally load NAV as my antivirus and have been happy with its performance. I also load Ghost and use it for image backups, disk copies and such. I do Ghost backups overnight to create images of all my computers. I do not usually load Cleansweep, which is an old QuarterDeck program unless I have trouble getting rid of a pesky program. I had to use it on my sons computer to get rid of a game that windows XP would neither acknowledge nor remove. Cleansweep did the trick, and then I removed Cleansweep when I was finished. I also find that the Norton programs that defragment and check disks are superior to the MS flavors. A lot of times the MS versions will not work without booting in SAFE mode. My agency had to buy a third part defrag program for use with Win2k because the MS program would not work like it is suppose to on our network. I also like the way WinDoctor cleans up things even though its actions only cure a few problems. I set my NU so that Norton's System Doctor does not load. I do not see any value added to system monitoring on a well setup computer. All in all I like Norton stuff and will continue to use it. I have loaded it on DOS, Win3.1, Win 3.11, Win95, Win98, Win2k, and WinXP and have not had any trouble that I could directly relate to a Norton product. I do agree with Brian that some of the programs do not add any value, and those I tend to avoid. Also each generation seems to offer less value and I see that in the future I will probably just buy NAV and Ghost and forget the rest of the package.

One thing that I cannot say enough is that everybody MUST use an antivirus program. One thing that I cannot say enough is that everybody MUST use an antivirus program. Hehehe. I get at least one virus hit a day, mostly NETSKY attached to junk mail, on my computers and between NAV and the Cox systems server all have been gobbled up and rendered useless. I had to deal with a Trojan on on my son-in-laws computer yesterday and NAV found it and removed the offending program before it could do any damage. The other thing that I cannot say enough is to backup your important stuff.

I do it daily at work and weekly at home, and every few weeks I make a Ghost image of my hard disk. The last several times I have had hard disk failures I lost zero, sip, nada. All due to good backups.

For alternate browsers I have used Mozzila, Opera, and Netscape all with good results. My favorite of the three is Opera. But since going to an NT bassed operating system I have stuck to IE. I probably should change but I just haven't bothered. My son uses Mozilla and loves it. For email I have used Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape and Eudora all with good results. I currently use Outlook 2003 and it works pretty good.

[robinp]

Only Norton product I have good words for is Ghost.
Opera is a nice alternative browser but you really need a choice of two 'cos you'll find some sites only work with certain browsers.

I'll stop now before I'm tempted to write hundreds of words on why I hate NAV......

Cheers, Robin

[HulaMike]

send them to me michaelohara@verizon.net ;)