NAV 2005 - is this inevitable!?! (1 Viewer)

[John Watson]

Warning - Rant ahead!

Ever since upgrading from NAV 2002 to NAV 2005 a few months ago, my Windows 98 computer has gotten much slower to use - tasks such as word processing or surfing are frequently, and on no discernible schedule, interrupted and slowed down by my hard drive chattering, and the cursor taking the hourglass form. This would seem to happen at least several times a day, for minutes at a time.

At these times, Control Alt Del will show either or all of Aupdate, Ccapp, Lucomserver_2_6 in operation, all Symantec applications.

Is Norton seeking Virus updates unilaterally? (I do not always get that little "broadcasting antenna" symbol on these occasions, tho when that symbol starts, I just leave the computer for 5 minutes.)

Or does Symantec start this Virus Update up from its HQ, based on it knowing some new viruses or worms are making the rounds?

When I open Outlet Express, and there is actually an email or two to be downloaded from the ISP, the computer harddrive now chatters for 2 or more minutes, apparently this is NAV scanning? Much much longer than before I upgraded to NAV 2005!

When I actually open NAV to scan a file or directory on my computer, the process can take about 3 minutes to get to the stage of carrying out the scan.

Furthermore, there seems to no alternative in the default set-ups to letting Norton do it's stuff when it freaking well chooses. For example, it arrogantly launches a System Scan at 8 pm on Friday evening, instead of leting me specify, for example, to do it at 2 am on Monday morning.

Finally, and I think this also has an impact on my problems, the "Free Resources" reading of my computer at its best has dropped from 88% to 79% since the upgrade. With several applications such as Interent Explorer and Outloook Express and Word Processing oepn, I am usually down to low 60's% now.

And an actual reboot of my computer since this upgrade to NAV 2005 is now taking several more minutes longer than before

Are these negatives all due to 'improvements' in NAV, ie scanning for many more viruses and threats than Version 2005 did. (Tho I tend to think that 39,003 of the extant 51,253 viruses and worms in Symantecs historical files probably are no longer in circulation or were negated by patches to Internet Explorer etc years ago?

Anyway, is there no alternative to this kind of crappy downgrading of computer enjoyment in our modern age?

I suppose I can opt for Non-auto-protect, which I suppose leaves the onus on me to seek updates, or do scans, when I want, and take the risk of hoping any emails or sites I open or visit in the meantime do not contain a new virus?

Rant over. Any insight on any of my questions however, will be appreciated.

 

[Gordon Wakim]

As far as the Friday 8pm scan, all you have to do is go to Control PanelScheduled Task and change when it does it's scan. I set mine to 3am on Sunday. You did not mention what kind of computer you are using, but I have a P4 3.2ghz with Windows XP SP2 and found that NAV was a memory hog. This may be more of a problem with Windows 98. I disabled Auto Protect and Auto Live Update (Look in NAV Options) and all runs well, I do keep E-Mail and Worm scanning turned on. Now I do a system scan once a week and check for updates manually. Did you just upgrade over your old NAV 2002 ? I think Symantec recommends completely removing the old version before installing the new version.

 

[Mike Voigt]

Gordon, you're probably on the right track about memory hogging. One thing for sure - Win98 was horrible about heap management. It bled off like crazy - a major reason for me to move to 2000.

Also, a lot of this software is no longer intended, really, for 98. That might be a part of the problem; that and the fact that most machines nowadays have a ton of memory, in some cases more than could be handled by 98. Also, disk drive sizes can cause difficulties.

 

[Parker Clack]

John:

I would just turn off any of the automatic loading by NAV and run your scans manually. If that doesn't help dump NAV and get some like AVG or Avast for your virus scanner.

Parker

 

[John Watson]

Thanks for listening

Well Gordon, I did manage to find how to reschedule the virus scan, which is good. Thanks.

Mikes' comments about old computers probably apply, this old baby is 3 gigs.

Parker, I am sooo tempted to try something else than Norton.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

give avg anti-virus and antivir a try. i use both of them on my PIII 866 MHz machine, and don't even notice they're there. although i havent tried it, avast! is another free alternative to the bloated and expensive antivirus solutions.

CJ

 

[Parker Clack]

The one thing to be aware of is that avast! will slow you down some as it checks each executable file that you have to make sure it is legitimate when it launches. You can turn this off. I haven't had a virus get through to my system since using it and it is freeware which is hard to beat.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

apparently avast! doesn't like to coexist with antivir on the same machine. of course, you can use both virus scanners, but avast warns that both real-time scanners of each program cannot be active at the same time.

CJ