topic Re: NIS driving me nuts!!! :( in Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

NIS driving me nuts!!! :(

S3ZAi — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:37:17 GMT

Norton was checking all files in the background and found one very big compressed file in which there were some threats. Actually this file is a backup of my 'my documents' folder of a previous windows install. Whenever I decide to re-install windows, I rar up all my files within the my documents folder and store it as backup. The files NIS found are all related to 'advanced gaming' for lack of a better term. These are files like trainers and savegameeditors which make it possible to alter games in some ways. I know for a fact they are all safe.

Anyway, when NIS found the file, it ONLY gave me the option of deleting it while making a backup. Which I think is already a step too far, because I should be able to tell NIS that the file is ok after all, because there are also other, more important files in there, I would just like to keep it. And when necessary just extract the few I need.

This was not the case, all I could do was let NIS put the file in quarantaine. Which is ok, because you can always get stuff back out of quarantaine if you really have to. But the problems started here: NIS told me the file was too large to put it in quarantaine, I could delete the file, but it would be just deleted, it wouldn't be put in quarantaine, I didn't get another option. I really don't want to delete the file with all my other stuff in it, so I chose to close the window that informs me of this threat. But NIS is not able to live with this decision of mine, it keeps popping up every 15 minutes or so to tell me that it has found threats, which actuall is the same file each and everytime time and all I can do is close the window everytime and on top of that NIS asks for confirmation every time, so it's two clicks every time. I feel like I'm being pushed in an endless loop here.

So what should I do now? A few days back I was working on something important and because NIS kept bothering me about this same file over and over again, I lost my concentration and in the end I just disabled NIS altogether, but this should not be the only option left for me. I should be able to tell NIS to put this file in a trusted files list or something. Is there an option like this I don't know about, if not, what should I do?

Re: NIS driving me nuts!!! :(

dickevans — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:45:45 GMT

Hi,

You can exclude compressed file scans. Open NIS -> computer -> computer scan -> set to off. I also turn remove infected compressed files off, before turning of the scan. Makes me feel better.

Re: NIS driving me nuts!!! :(

S3ZAi — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:27:47 GMT

Yes, but, isn't it a bit weird that I have to exclude a whole class of files, just because I can't tell NIS to trust this one file?

What if something like this were to happen with a file that isn't compressed?

Also, I have the experience, but I could be wrong, that NIS doesn't work backwards in time, meaning that I wonder if after the fact that it has found this file as a threat, excluding compressed files would cause it to forget this file. I will check right away, if it works, I will go with this solution, even if it is a very weak one...

Re: NIS driving me nuts!!! :(

Atomic_Blast — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:08:03 GMT

Hi S3Zai:

If you decide to allow all compressed files, infected or not, it should still be OK, due to the fact

that Auto-Protect within NIS would immediately "kick-in" once you open the compressed container file

and extract the contents.

Regards,

Atomic_Blast :)

Re: NIS driving me nuts!!! :(

DaveH — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:55:09 GMT

Norton can't scan a password protected archive.

But a better option is to remove your game tools from your main archive and just have those in a password protected rar file.

Your also right about it "remembering" if it's listed under "unresolved risks" it's going to keep warning you about it until you let Norton resolve it or until you remove it from the unresolved list.

Dave