Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

Many thanks for the clarification -- I just wanted to be sure.

[rdv741]

As a user of PowerDesk and NIS2009, I have read this thread very thoroughly and used the information from it to help bring my systems back into satisfactory working order. My sincere thanks to the contributors.

Before finding this thread I had tried to solve the problem by searching the Norton Support site and engaging in an online chat with a Norton Support staffer. Even though I described the symptoms quite carefully (Windows Explorer abort) the staffer concluded that NIS was not installed properly. The only resolution offered was to help me remove and reinstall the product. Of course, that fixed the problem temporarily by reinstalling a 16.2 version of NIS. As soon as LiveUpdate downloaded another copy of the 16.5 version, the problem returned. I have no thanks to offer Norton Support.

I do not blame Norton for the situation. In an open multi-vendor extensible environment such as Windows, it is quite easy for product clashes to arise and quite difficult for users and vendors to sort out the causes. The concept of blame for the problem is hardly useful, and should not come into the conversation.

But I do hold Norton responsible for their unsatisfactory handling of the situation. This kind of problem was identified in mid-2008 as a clash between Norton 360 and PowerDesk. The NIS team chose to upgrade their context menu handling (needed to support Windows Vista 64-bit as described in support DOCID 20081022122658EN) and to deploy the upgrade to their users via LiveUpdate. The upgrade was installed silently, with no announcement to users or request for acceptance by users.

The NIS team should have known the change would trigger a clash with PowerDesk and other products, as N360 had done last year. They might have considered withholding the upgrade, or deploying it only on Vista 64-bit systems, to avoid impact to their users. They absolutely should have prepared their support staff to help users through the inevitable problems, and should have published a formal support article on how to resolve the problem. Reinstalling NIS should not be the first and only resolution offered.

Even though the situation is not Norton’s fault, they should have done a much better job of supporting their paying customers through the situation.

[Brubaker]

This topic has been pretty thoroughly beaten, but I'd like to offer a brief summary of my own experience. I run Win XP SP3 and I have had PowerDesk installed for years. It's a great program and never caused the slightest problem.

Jump forward to a few weeks ago. I installed NIS 2009 from CD (v16.0). All was well.

I ran LiveUpdate which updated to v16.2. Again, all was well.

Some time later, NIS updated to v16.5 and right click context menus no longer worked.

I've been troubleshooting in various venues for a long time and understand the methodology, but the indications here seemed fairly clear. I assumed (always dangerous) that the problem was linked to something that had changed in v16.5.  Actually, that probably is true, but the underlying cause lay elsewhere.

I downloaded and installed the Avanquest fix for PowerDesk. Voila! The problem was gone.

I have lingering concerns though. In reading this thread, it appears that there have been ongoing problems involving various Norton products and PowerDesk. In my own experience, NIS v16.x and PD7 worked well together--until NIS updated to v16.5. Then the problem surfaced. This suggests that the current Avanquest "fix" may be transitory and the problem may return with newer Norton products. On the up side, if that happens I'll know where to look first.

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

Thanks for sharing your experience in this saga.

Since in my understanding the root cause was that Microsoft changed a protocol which they and other software programmers did not immediately follow and the situation in PowerDesk (and other applications mentioned in the threads, eg ZipMagic and a super renamer untility) was rectified by PowerDesk altering their program I would hope that Microsoft and PowerDesk are now both observing the protocol -- as Norton was -- and so it should not happen again to PowerDesk ..... until Microsoft make another change and PowerDesk is tardy?

Back last year when this first cropped up with Norton 360 (and to me while here in the Forums) it was perhaps complicated by Microsoft having just released XP SP3 and VISTA SP1 and by N360 going from V1 to V2 and since PowerDesk had not changed then clearly it must have been due to N360 since going back to V1 caused PowerDesk to operate normally <g> But life is never so simple as was eventually found out.

So for me the fact that it coincided with NIS 2009 going to 16.5 does not automatically tie that step as the true cause (as distinct from trigger) since applying the PowerDesk fix to their product fixed the problem .... and also stopped the Windows Explorer crash that did not happen back with N360 last year since I used WE until PD was fixed.

[jazbo1]

just uninstall the Better File Renamer version you have installed and right click (explorer) should work again

then go get the new version here that has solved the issue.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/Better-File-Rename.shtml

if you paid for a version 5.? your license code will unlock the new version also.

good luck

Steve