I guess I have to join this club. The problems I'm having are on my primary PC and a laptop, both running XP Pro Sp3 with the latest updates. My wifes PC running Vista has not had any problems I am aware of. I'll start with the desktop PC.
A few weeks ago I started having problems during shutdown with a window popping up complaining about ccsvchst not responding. the computer would hang at that window until I selected the "end" button to kill it. I did some cursory investigation and noticed that the NIS icon would sometimes disappear from the taskbar and the NIS control panel could not be opened. Whenever this happened I would get the ccsvchst error at shutdown. About a week ago a Norton tech remotely uninstalled and reinstalled NIS. This worked for about a week but the problem reappeared. Yesterday another tech did the same thing but also made a registry change and assured me the problem would not reoccur. The change will force the shutdown of the hung ccsvchst daemon on shutdown but does not fix the underlying problem.
I captured some of our conversation by cut and paste and edited it to remove names and timestamps. Some of it is listed below.
Tech: did the issue repeated again?
Me: No, not this time. Same as the last time this was done.
Tech: it will not repeat again. Some times it will occur, if there are plenty of programs running on your computer.
Me: That does not sit well with me. When ccsvchst stops responding is NIS still protecting my PC? If I do a backup and ccsvchst is hung will the PC shut down like it's supposed to? Why can't this work like it's supposed to?
Me: How do you define "plenty of programs"?
Tech: have reseted the settings and I'm sure that the issue won't repeat again in future. I'm sure about it. it won't repeat again.
Me: What was the registry change you made and can you put my background back.
Tech: I have changed one of the value from 0 to 1 in Auto end tasks in registry, which will fix the issue permanently.
Me: Please tell me the name of that value.
Tech: Yes, you can go through this steps. ---HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
---In the right pane, right-click AutoEndTasks, and then click Modify.
-- Change the value from 0 to 1.
Me: OK. You did not answer my other question though. If ccsvchost gets hung is NIS still protecting my computer?
Tech: Yes, NIS will protect your computer even though it hungs. But the issue won't repeat again.
Me: I hope not but don't share you confidence yet.
Tech: I'm confident that the issue won't repeat again. Is there anything else that I can help you with?
Me: Not at this time. I hope you are correct about the problem.
Tech: Yes, I resolved the issue correctly and it won't repeat in future.
Trying to get direct answers to questions was difficult at best. I guess they weren't scripted for him. Anyway NIS on the desktop once again seems to be working properly for the time being but I have lost confidence in it and Symantecs' ability to provide a reliable product. Other than the reinstall and registry change I have no idea what the tech did to any setting on my PC as nothing was happening on the screen for long periods of time.
Synamtec NEEDS to provide the capability for a complete log of any conversation I might have with Symantecs' on line support sent to me by email or the option to save the sessions when we are done. I also want to know what the tech has done to fix the issue.
As for the laptop, I installed NIS, ran live update, and experienced the ccsvchst problem immediately. I have not had Symantec put their magic fingers on it yet.
