Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[andrewfg]

I experienced repeated problems with a new installation of Windows 7 combined with NIS 2010.

Hardware: ASUS M3A motherboard; 4 GBRAM; AMD Dual Core CPU 2x2.5 GHZ; 4x 500GB HDD

Software: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit OEM; dual boot config with Windows Vista 32-bit on one of the other HDDs

NIS 2010 was purchased online; I used the same downloaded installer file on the failed install on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (reported below) and for the successful install on Windows Vista 32-bit on the same PC (where I am writing this message).

Attempted Steps:

1) Install Windows 7 clean install on a clean HDD

2) Install NIS 2010

3) Let LiveUpdate run on NIS 2010

4) Install MS Office 2003

5) Windows Update runs updates on Windows and Office

6) At some point between steps 4) and 5) Windows reports disk errors

7) Close down Windows

8) Restart Windows

9) During W7 restart, it automatically runs CHKDSK; which reports a lot of of disk errors; and it tries to fix them

At this point, the system is flakey: I don't trust it. So I re-format the whole HDD and run steps 1) thru 9) again. Same problem. I repeated this with some variations between steps 4) and 5) three times. Same problem each time.

Then, I repeated the same steps 1) thru 9) except in steps 2) and 3) instead of installing and updating NIS 2010, I installed and updated Kaspersky Internet Security 2010. This time (with Kaspersky) the installation process ran perfectly. And the computer is still running rock solid 2 days later.

Now Kaspersky looks like a good enough suite. But I think NIS 2010 is better. So my question is: how to fix NIS 2010 so it does not cause Disk Errors on my PC?

To summarise again, on the exact same hardware, NIS 2010 installs and works fine on the Vista 32-bit partition, but it fails on the Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit partition. And Kaspersky works fine on the latter. So the problem is due to the combination of Windows 7 64-bit and NIS 2010...

AndrewFG

[PapauZ Norton Fighter]

First please run a full chkdsk check (chkdsk /f) on your windows partition. NIS2010 shouldn't do anything with the disk. It is possible that there is some error on the disk....

Let us know the results.

[floplot Norton Fighter]

Hello andrew

How about doing the windows updates as soon as you have installed your Win 7 before you have installed anything else? That may make a difference. I recently had a new hard drive installed on my computer by a tech from the company that made my computer since it was still under warranty. After he installed the hard drive, he installed Windows and then he did the windows updates before he installed anything else. There might be something in the windows 7 updates that will correct some problem and then perhaps NIS 2010 will install properly. I don't know if this will help, but maybe it will. I think it's worth a try since you have already reformatted so many times.

[andrewfg]

There is nothing wrong with the disk: 1) it is brand new, 2) I did TWO full CHKDSK /F on it, and 3) it works fine with Kaspersky. The problem is NIS 2010 -- NOT the disk. ( Why do people always try to blame something else? )

[andrewfg]

I don't think it is the Windows Update that would fix the problems. Actually I suspect that the problem is more likely due to NIS 2010 insinuatiing itself in the Windows Update process and thus messing up the entries in the file system.

After all, you would indeed expect an Internet Security program to scan software downloaded from the Internet and isolating it from modifying the operating system files; so you could logically expect trouble if the downloaded software IS the operating system and it is supposed to modify the operating system files. => Perhaps NIS 2010 is being over enthusiastic in this case?

Concerning the advice to reformat and try again: Thanks but I will not take this advice. Since I do now at least have a working system (albeit with Kaspersky rather than NIS). Possibly I might try un-installing Kaspersky and re-installing NIS. But I will only take the risk of doing that if I receive some kind of confirmation that the NIS problems that I encountered were an "early install / special case" and not a more general / fundamental problem...

[DaveH]

Sounds like a RAM problem.

Either bad RAM, it's not completly compatable with the motherboard, or it's a timing problem.

Especially when you said it worked in 32 bit but not in 64 bit, the first thing that comes to mind is RAM.

You made some very good observations in your last post and maybe NIS makes the problem more apparent, it's not the actual cause of the problem. There are millions of installations of NIS out there and if it was causing the problem it would be much more widespread.

Maybe try doing a thorough memory test or look and see if ASUS has issued a BIOS update for any kind of RAM related problem. Or maybe try putting your system under some stress (KAV scan) while copying a lot of files or some other task.

Best of luck and I hope you can figure it out but it has to be a hardware related problem IMO.

Dave

[andrewfg]

Again, I don't think it is a RAM problem. ( Why do people always try to blame something else?) 1) I have installed the latest BIOS version, 2) the BIOS RAM timings are set to safest default values (no overclocking, no fancy RAM timing), and 3) on the exact same hardware, Windows Vista 32-bit runs fine with NIS 2010, and on the exact same hardware, Windows 7 64-bit runs fine with Kaspersky.

 People keep saying: "please solve the NIS 2010 problem by buying new RAM, or by buying a new HDD". Why should I take such advice? IMHO the cheaper solution is to "solve the NIS 2010 problem by not using NIS 2010". Or ??

Anyway, to be quite clear, I don't think the problem is any form of hardware problem. The problem is a software problem. It only occurs with the combination of Windows 7 64-bit and NIS 2010. It occurs during the early installation phase of Windows 7 OEM 64-bit, NIS 2010, MS Office 2003, and Windows Update on a tried and tested dual boot PC. It does not occur with Windows 7 64-bit alone, and it does not occur with Windows 7 64-bit plus Kaspersky.

[delphinium Norton Fighter]

Actually andrewfg, it also occurs on Win 7 Home Premium in a dual boot config with XP sp3.  It is annoying, isn't it?  So I suspect that it has nothing to do with RAM, or when and how things are installed, or whether 32 bit or 64 bit.  It is probably fairly individual to each machine or there would be a lot more people like us, but it is more likely to occur on a dual boot depending on the configuration.  If Norton is not matched up on a regular basis on both boots, it will happen apparently because of a shared EFA folder.

[andrewfg]

Yes. That makes sense.

I saw another thread were the guy had a problem, and he had a dual boot system too (actually a triple one).

Perhaps at least we have acheived some "resonance" => So perhaps somebody at Symantec can please now take up this issue in a formal way?

[delphinium Norton Fighter]

I'm not sure what can be done about it.  There may be a difference between partitions, as opposed to drives.  I have two separate drives, using the Windows boot manager.  There may be a solution if a separate boot manager was installed which more satisfactorily separated the operating systems.  In the case of partitions, I haven't got enough info on it to hazard a guess.

There is some indication that a different product mix, like N360 and NIS would solve the problem, but that also results in more expense and a lot of unnecessary licences.

I get about three days before I have to boot into both O/S and sort things out.