reese_anschultz wrote:
We have identified a problem that is affecting some users such as those on this thread. A fix has been made and is in the pipeline to be released with the next product update. The problem is timing related, so it may not always happen for some users and doesn't appear to happen at all for most users. This appears to be related to changes that were made in Vista SP1 but I've seen reports of this problem from XP users as well. For those users, I'm curious about which service pack they are using.
I have been querying several friends who picked up the same original free trial I did from the Bank of America website (it offers a free 90 day subscription). Additionally, I have this installed on a total of six computers across my own network, plus two family members.
In -every instance- this problem is happening, so I have to urge you to revisit whether this is a "timing related" problem that "doesn't appear to happen at all for most users." I can testify this problem is happening for EVERY person I've recommended this software to (at least 20 people total including my multiple installations and those on family member's machines). It is not at all an isolated incident.
My suspicion is that most people are not noticing its a problem because they are not actively sharing files or computers in a household and attempting to access those files across a home network. Most people probably would be oblivious to networked hard drives and such, but small business users and those with advanced home networks are likely to encounter this, and have repeatedly reported it in multiple threads.
Additionally, since we're also talking about XP Service Pack 3, which was actually officially released in May, 2008 I am hard pressed to understand what "changes" Microsoft has made which impacted on your product. It seems far more likely to be a design flaw from the get-go, at least where XP is concerned. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who never had this problem when they first installed Norton 2009, but after some product update it suddenly stopped working. My suspicion is the vast majority, if not all folks impacted by this, have had this problem since they originally installed Norton 2009. I'd suspect many of those not complaining about it downgraded back to Norton 2008 or uninstalled the product and chose something else to get on with their lives.
Clearly, this is an issue where Norton is intercepting Microsoft's home networking traffic, no doubt as part of the protection scheme, and is blocking it from functioning properly. Since the same problem is happening with Norton's Internet Security suite and the general Norton Antivirus package, it's not a firewall component that is at fault, because Norton AV doesn't appear to have one.
Maybe Norton does have this bug fixed (I can only hope). I am not sure how long this "pipeline" is for the new update that includes this fix, but perhaps it might be smarter to make something available sooner for users like ourselves that can rapidly determine whether this is the bug fix we've been waiting for, or if this doesn't solve the problem. It would be far more efficient to get an answer one way or the other sooner rather than later.
