norton nightmare

Oh for the love of Benji (I blame Futurama for introducing that line into my vocabulary... I really really do)...

Talk about the installation that would not end...

At 3:03pm this afternoon I purchased the new version of Norton Internet Security 2006, since the version that I've been using for the last four years (and have been very happy with, since it's done everything I wanted it to do and has mostly stayed out of my face while doing it) is suddenly no longer available for updates, forcing me to purchase the new whizz bang version with far too many bells and whistles for my liking...

It's now after 10pm, and with one thing and another I am only just getting back online after the installation and all the stuff it wanted to do are finished...

Yup, that's right... SEVEN HOURS!

The program itself took about an hour and a half to download, running at like 4-5kb per second... for what reason I have no idea... I wasn't even running anything else at the time... then I had to start the installation not once, not twice, not three times... but FOUR times...

The first time I was running a Spyware detection program that Norton told me I had to uninstall (no problem, I never use it anyway, and the new program comes with Spyware detectors)... the second time I had to uninstall the 2002 version of Norton (okay, not sure why the 2006 version couldn't just install over the top and use any existing files that were appropriate, like the virus definitions for example)... the third time it was telling me that there was another installer running, which was impossible because I'd just rebooted the computer and there was NOTHING running... so I ended up having to use the reset button, because the computer wouldn't shut down... but then finally it loaded the damn program.

Then I had to reboot the computer for like the millionth time...

And because Norton takes about a thousand years to start itself up I'd already gotten it to start downloading the new virus definitions (again) and the new whizzbang "Protection Software" kicked in, and was trying to do the same thing, so ended up with an error because it's left hand didn't know what it's right hand was doing...

So I had to reboot... AGAIN...

After which I just left it, let it start up in it's own good time... and it had to redownload all of the virus definitions and whatnot that I already had on my computer since my old virus software had been merrily downloading them until today...

Once it finally managed that, it wanted to do a full system scan... I HATE full system scans... I have far too much crap on my computer and they always take forever... this one certainly did... it scanned just under 115000 files, and it took TWO HOURS to do it...

By which time it was 10pm...

BAH!

Having said that though, it did pick up a single incident of one of those W32 Worm virus thingies on my computer... so that's a bonus, even if the rest of the process was like pulling teeth...

Added to that was the added annoyance that because I wasn't online I got a phonecall on my landline... now, my landline NEVER gets used... I'm pretty much online with it all the time... so, to be honest, I don't even recognise the phone when it rings... I actually thought it was something on the DVD commentary I was watching and expected them to say something about it... when they didn't I finally twigged that it was my phone... after all that, as though yesterday's run in with pushy sales reps wasn't enough, the phonecall was from some poor shmuck at Telstra telling me that because I was such a good customer they wanted to offer me some deal... I didn't even let him tell me what the deal was, I just told him I wasn't interested and hung up.

Today was just the mindfuck that would not end...

Current Mood: just plain cranky

1 comment:

Larry said...

Full system scans are a pain in the ass, aren't they? I usually start mine just before bed and let the computer do it's thing by itself. McAfee has been good to me so far and it's saved my ass on several occasions. The big downside is the occasional internet surfing issues caused by the Privacy Service function. Well, I guess there's also the gripe about just how much of a resource hog the overall package is.