Kudos6 Stats

How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 05-Aug-2015 | 7:51PM · 29 Replies ·

I was reading THIS POST on Symantec Connect and user cjm found a solution to activate SSR 2013 in Windows 10. I just made a couple of adjustments and tried Ghost 15 in Windows 8.1. It worked! I edited his instructions for Ghost 15. This is at your own risk. Ghost is outdated and I personally would not feel comfortable using a backup software that is not designed for the OS you are backing up!

  1. Open the services control panel (View local services control panel)
  2. Find "Symantec System Recovery" "Norton Ghost" and open the properties
  3. Change startup type to Disabled and click apply
  4. Click Stop
  5. Open a windows explorer and navigate to the install directory (for me it was C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec System Recovery\Agent   "C:\Program Files (x86) \Norton Ghost\Agent")
  6. Right click on VProSvc.exe and select properties
  7. Change to the Compatibility tab
  8. Click "Change settings for all users"
  9. Check "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
  10. Change the compatibility mode drop down to "Windows 8 Windows7"
  11. Click OK
  12. Click OK again to close the properties
  13. Go back to Services and open "Symantec System Recovery" "Norton Ghost" properties again
  14. Change startup type back to Automatic and click apply
  15. Click Start
  16. Close the service properties

Replies

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 05-Aug-2015 | 8:15PM · Permalink

It worked. I made a backup of the C: drive to the desktop. I did this in Virtual Box. It passed verification too!

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 06-Aug-2015 | 11:22AM · Permalink

Nice work Red, thank you.

Dave

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 06-Aug-2015 | 2:42PM · Permalink

Not me. Member cjm on the Symantec Connect forum gets all the credit.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 06-Aug-2015 | 4:47PM · Permalink

You did it to make the pretty pictures.

It worked for me with Ghost 15 and Windows 10 32bit.

Although I need to start over because I can't activate 10 because I did a clean install and this netbook never had it installed before.

Dave

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 08-Aug-2015 | 10:26PM · Permalink

Thank you redk9258 for the input.  I went ahead and installed Aomie.  After trying several things and rebooting multiple times I had enough.  Your right it is out of date. Running in compatibility didn't work.  I uninstalled it twice.  Aomie is running now no challenges and it is free I may get then prom version.  I don't know yet.

Ed

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 09-Aug-2015 | 12:18AM · Permalink

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 12-Sep-2015 | 8:06PM · Permalink

I'm going to give up on Ghost. I'm sorry cause I've used it a few times to recover different files.  But since I switched to Win10, it keeps asking for the product key which I DO HAVE since I bought the program.

Think I'll just use the Win10 backup program for now....it did backup last night. It would be nice when someone figures out how to get around the product code. This is the second program I've gotten from Norton over the years that they quit supporting. So I'm going to stop supporting Norton.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 12-Sep-2015 | 8:42PM · Permalink

Did you read the first post in this thread?

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 12-Sep-2015 | 10:05PM · Permalink

Yes, I did...

It still says my product key is invalid! I even tried adjusting it to run on Win XP.... that didn't work either. 

I TOTALLY removed it tonight. Maybe I'll try reinstalling just out of curiosity. But so far, Win10 backed up the whole computer. The only problem from what I read is that it can only TOTALLY RESTORE my computer. If I delete and then try to restore an individual file, it's not possible with the Win10 backup.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 13-Sep-2015 | 6:58AM · Permalink

Then you must not be using a valid Ghost 15 key.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 13-Sep-2015 | 11:12AM · Permalink

I'll try reinstalling later today or tomorrow and follow instructions again.

It's the key that came with my disk! And I've entered it 2 or 3 times to make sure I didn't miss a number. I probably should just find another backup program to use since Ghost has been discontinued. I just really like Ghost and have been using it for years and am very used to it!
 

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 13-Sep-2015 | 8:16PM · Permalink

After the install, go to the file VProSvc.exe and set the compatibility to WIndows 7. Then reboot. Hopefully it will take your key. Good Luck.

If you really like Ghost, then you would like SSR 2013 Desktop. It works the same as Ghost. Unfortunately, Symantec has drug their feet and not issued a real patch. There is an alternate version of VProSvc.exe that is patched to work with Windows 10 available for download, but it is a half-assed fix. I don't know why they are dragging their feet issuing a Windows 10 compatible version of SSR. I guess they don't care about their backup programs or customers who use them. I'm sure they are losing lots of customers over this.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 13-Sep-2015 | 9:10PM · Permalink

I'm actually fine just using the windows backup program, but the thing I don't like about it is that it's not possible to recover individual files. Maybe since 10 has a backup program included, they're not as interested in making theirs work with 10??? I've run across a few problems. I don't seem to be able to update itunes, and Skype will not install on this computer. I need to do some work with it, but I still have old computers that are working, [and running XP!] so i haven't spent lots of time trying to get things to work. But I have a little more time this week to do a few of these things, so maybe I'll get it all to work.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!
 

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 14-Sep-2015 | 9:16AM · Permalink

I have 20 licences of Norton Ghost 15 and it does not work in Windows 10. I have try the steps from redk9258

Help is welcome.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 14-Sep-2015 | 10:35AM · Permalink

I might try to reinstall since I did a complete uninstall of any Norton products. There are things about Win10 that cause programs not to work. McAfee software won't install in Win10. So I'm having to use Windows DEFENDER. McAfee says they're working on it, but I don't understand since the software companies knew about this change a year ago, why didn't they start fixing then??

I just feel more protected using other software than ones that come "free" with Windows. Maybe I shouldn't be worrying??
 

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 15-Sep-2015 | 7:06PM · Edited: 15-Sep-2015 | 7:08PM · Permalink

Try this:

https://community.norton.com/en/forums/ghost-150-windows-10

This worked for me on 2 PC's. At first I was also unable to restore an individual file, but under TOOLS, I used "Run Recovery Point Browser" and that worked. I deleted a file and was able to restore it this way. Good Luck. ​

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 13-Nov-2015 | 5:12PM · Permalink

Thanks, redk9258, the steps you posted worked for me to activate Ghost 15 on Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 14-Nov-2015 | 10:09PM · Permalink

Whether it was your idea originally or not, thanks Red!

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 03-Dec-2015 | 9:41PM · Edited: 03-Dec-2015 | 9:42PM · Permalink

Using Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit instead of setting the compatibility mode tab to [win7] which did not work for me, I Change the compatibility mode drop down to "WindowsXP SP3" and Ghost 15 was able to activate.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 04-Dec-2015 | 11:54AM · Permalink

Installed Norton Ghost successfully on a windows 10 system using the instructions above, but I am unable to make a backup. The process starts, but then hangs at 5% "creating a restore point" and then fails after about an hour. Any ideas?

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 05-Dec-2015 | 6:26AM · Permalink

View > Event log. Any error there?

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 05-Dec-2015 | 8:49AM · Permalink

Hello Tazk9, have you set your compatibility mode drop down to "WindowsXP SP3" instead of [win7]? Try that as my Ghost works just fine in windows 10.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 05-Dec-2015 | 9:13AM · Permalink

I will grab the event logs and try setting the compatibility to XP SP3 on Monday when I am in front of the system again.

Thanks

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 28-May-2016 | 7:14AM · Permalink

Can I just say that I have tried many forums for many things, and this is the first time that a fix has worked so well.  Not only that, every instruction worked perfectly (once I'd signed in as Administrator).  Quite often you can get to stage 6, or whatever, and the whole thing falls apart!

Much obliged!

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 28-May-2016 | 12:49PM · Permalink

Hey Tazk9, did you finally get your Ghost install working?

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 15-Jun-2016 | 10:49AM · Permalink

Woohoo! Worked for me as well. I have used Ghost for years and was complete BS that they disabled the ability to activate purchased software. Well now it's activated and working on my machine. I am backing up OFFLINE as intended.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 07-Aug-2016 | 3:23AM · Permalink

I'm using since about 10 years Norton Ghost 14 every week on both my laptop and desktop, both Windows 7 64 bit without problems. The reason why I didn't switch and wouldn't do it in the future...Windows 10 don't accept this software

Now I have a bought a notebook (naturally...obliged...Windows 10) and are looking how to realize an image backup...

So, do somebody have a suggestion, because I don't know if SSR or Acronis will do the job ?

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 09-Aug-2016 | 3:07PM · Permalink

Hello Prutsman, maybe Ghost 14 will also work by using the top original post, I've only used Ghost 15. Also we have been using Acronis True Image also as a back up source in windows 10 because having only one backup source is really not advisable.

Kudos0

Re: How to activate Ghost 15 in Windows 8(.1) and probably Windows 10...

Posted: 10-Aug-2016 | 10:01AM · Permalink

Thanks for your info.

I was prepared to change all needed changes (as explained) in Program Files…but first of all I had to install Norton Ghost 14 on my Windows 10.

So I did.

It took a little bit of time but the installation didn’t cause problems.

By entering my key…something unbelievable was happing: Ghost 14 opens with changing something in the Program Files.

Afterwards I was making an image backup on an other partition of the computer.

Also…this seems OK.

I can not make a test with my recovery disk because my notebook doesn’t have a cdI eader.

Next step: Buying and connecting an usb cd reader and looking if I find the image.  

Knowing that there are no problems with Ghost 14 on Windows 7,64 bit computers I also

will I try to install Ghost on a Windows 7 32 bit: possible that some program files changes will e needed .

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