Norton 360

[jd932]

I've searched and Googled for 2 days now, trying to find someone with a similar problem.

This happens on 2 PCs-

1) Home-built desktop, running Vista Ultimate, and

2) HP notebook, running Vista Home Premium.

My 3rd PC, running XP Pro SP2, does NOT exhibit this problem.

To begin, all 3 had NIS 2008 (3 user) installed, and I still have 28 days left on the subscription.

I purchased N360 v2 (also 3 user) early, to take advantage of rebates, so I haven't installed from the CD yet,

as it requires a key, doesn't have a 15 day trial mode, and I don't want to waste my remaining 28 days of NIS 2008.

So I downloaded the trial version of N360 v2, to do a quick evaluation, and the install looked fine on all 3 machines.

Here's the sequence of events that generate the error.

Start IE7

Right click on a picture, select "Save Picture As..."

The 'Save Picture" dialog box appears.

If that filename already exists, I'll right-click on the file in the file list, select the "Preview" command,

and view what is already in the file.

At this point, I'll get an error, either "The remote procedure call failed" or "The rpc server is unavailable".

Under Administrative> Services, "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" is started, and set to Automatic. The RPC Locator

is set to Manual, and not started.

Then I un-installed N360 v2, and the RPC error is gone.

Re-installed NIS 2008 on both machines, still no problem.

For verification, I un-installed NIS 2008, re-installed N360v2, and the RPC problem returns.

I un-installed N360v2 again, the RPC error is gone.

And for fun, I installed NIS 2009 Beta (trial), and still no problem.

Then I un-installed NIS 2009 Beta, and re-installed N360 v2, and the RPC errors return.

Any ideas? Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Rick

[cgoldman]

You are/were  running two similar symantec products and this may be part of the issue. In any event it is not clear in your efforts if your applied the Norton Removal Tool for either of the products when you attempted uninstall.

Please check out this Advisory Note link. This may or may not resolve the issue but you certainly would be advised to apply NRT in future attempts to resolve issue.

[jd932]

Thanks for the reply, but no luck so far. I un-installed N360v2 (trial), and my Ghost 12.0, and then

ran the Norton Removal Tool. Then re-installed the trial N360v2, and did it's updates.

I still get the RPC errors.

I only did this on one machine, running Vista Ultimate (my 'test bed' machine).

I did numerous installs and removals of NIS 2008, NIS 2009 beta, and N360 v2, and ran the system with

no Norton NIS or N360 (using Windows firewall, with and without Defender turned on). 

The only condition in which I get RPC errors while using IE7 is with N360 installed.

NIS2008=OK; N360v2=error.; no Norton=OK; NIS2008=OK; N360v2=error; no Norton=OK ;

NIS2008=OK; N360=error; NIS2009 beta=OK; N360v2=error.

This sequence of installs and removals (on one machine running Vista Ultimate) tells me that there is

a bug in N360v2 that is disrupting the RPC system.

Thanks,

Rick

[Tony_Weiss Administrator]

Could it also be the multiple installs and removals and beta software installed that might too contribute to this problem? Have you tried reloading your "test bed" OS and starting over?

[johna]

Another idea may be to try to do a manual cleanup by following these steps, then run the Norton Removal Tool and try installing again.

NOTE: Before proceeding it is wise to backup your registry either manually, or by running System Restore and creating a restore point.

1 Go to start>run>type regedit>highlight 'my computer'>edit>find>type symantec>tick all boxes, including 'match whole string only'>find next. When you see the value 'symantec' come up in left pane, right click and delete it. Next, press F3 and repeat the procedure. Keep pressing F3 until the search is finished.

2. Do exactly as in 3 above, but type norton in the search field instead of symantec. When done, close the registry editor.

3. Go to start>search>type symantec in the search field>advanced search>tick all boxes except 'case sensitive'>search. Delete any folders that come up except the Symantec folder in My Documents. If any wont delete drag them over onto your desktop and delete from there.

4. Do exactly as in 5 above, but type norton in the search field instead of symantec.

5. Go to start>run>type temp>edit>select all>press Delete.

6. Go to start>run>type %temp%>edit>select all>press Delete.

7. Go to start>run>type prefetch>edit>select all>press Delete. When done, restart your PC.

[jd932]

Thanks for the ideas. Tonight I started chasing this down with a 'sledgehammer'.

I had restored an image I made before all this began, with NIS2008 installed and working, all NIS updates applied,

and all Vista updates except for SP1 installed. No RPC errors.

I didn't use the normal un-install method, I used the Norton Removal Tool to wipe out all installed

products (Ghost 12 and NIS2008), and rebooted.

Installed the N360v2 trial, and applied all updates. The RPC errors occurred.

Then I used the sledgehammer.

I formatted C: and re-installed Vista Ultimate, with NO Windows updates, ran my quick IE7 test, and no RPC errors.

Then I installed the N360v2, again ran my IE7 test, and NO RPC errors!

So this narrows the interaction to one of 60+ available Vista updates vs N360.

(But one that doesn't affect NIS 2008 or NIS 2009 beta???)

So tomorrow, I'll do quick Ghost backup, install 5-10 updates, and test; if no problem, backup again,

install more updates, and repeat until I find this.

But if anyone has any ideas on this, I appreciate any info or insights.

Thanks,

Rick

[johna]

Sounds like a good idea, let us know the results!

[jd932 · Accepted solution]

After a couple more afternoons searching for this, I believe I found the problem.

A clean install of Vista, and N360, with most (if not all) updates is not the cause.

This is another form of the Avanquest Powerdesk problems. (I have 7.0.1.1 installed.)

I thought I had my 2 Vista systems patched, but I neglected to verify that the correct files were installed.

The Powerdesk patch reported no errors, so it must be OK, right? It worked on my XP machine fine.

But on the Vista machines, I had to:

a) boot in 'Safe' mode to run the patch, and

b) edit the registry entry to rename the Shell Ext handler to 'zPowerDesk Menu'.

     The Key is "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers".

     This is to allow right-clicking on the .Bat file to replace the files.

These items have been covered in other threads; if someone more knowledgable that me

would like to link this thread to those, feel free to do so.

Thanks,

Rick