Hello forum admins, I am new to this community board - though I have been a paying customer of NIS for the last few years.
I am writing to ask for guidance on getting effective support and answers on a topic that has been raised several times by other users but never properly resolved...
The problem:
For users of third-party file managers (the most popular of which are affected - Directory Opus (the undeniable king of all IMHO), Total Commander (longtime favorite among many old school NORTON COMMANDER users out there - HELLO), Turbo Navigator, Free Commander, PowerDesk, and XYplorer, etc)... and the 'Scan Now' Context Menu action provided by the NIS shell extension.
With v21... a change was made in NIS that broke this context menu for third-party file managers. I am currently running NIS v21.4.0.13. on Windows 7 Enterprise and Home Premium, with Directory Opus v11.5.4.0.
The ASK:
How can paying customers of Symantec get an accurate explanation for this change, and hopefully support on getting it reverted or otherwise improved so that users of legitimate third-party file managers are not being discriminated against? I will certainly be referring Symantec to this thread via the Feedback link in NIS.
What is NOT wanted or appreciated:
Wild goose chase suggestions to uninstall/reinstall, talk to (only) the third-party file manager developers (done and done), and any other similar theoretical suggestions. This seems to have been an INTENTIONAL change made by Symantec in v21, at least as indicated in THIS POST by forum admin Mohan_G on 10-04-2013:
Sorry for not getting back sooner and thanks for your patience.I just got an update from the team.
Third-Party Explorer Shells (Like Total Commander File Manager) are no longer supported for this feature in Norton v21.
Some details:
To show that it’s not just one user being affected (not to mention just referring to the wealth of file managers I listed above ALL being affected), in addition to the first (and oldest) thread I referenced above which I take to be fairly definitive - here are some other similar threads. But a warning to would-be and well-intentioned responders to this new thread: the specific issue of the ‘Scan Now’ context menu being BLOCKED on purpose by Symantec for file managers other than Windows Explorer gets obfuscated in places by comments from people who weren’t aware of the cause of the issue – so let’s please not have any more of that here (see the “ASK” above please):
Second Thread: http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/No-right-click-Virus-Scan-Option-in-v21/m-p/1024685#M245399
In each case, the thread became closed due to lack of response, even in midst of outstanding questions from users. And none of the threads address the “ASK” above. There IS however a workaround, which for Directory Opus users like myself, I helped provide some initial details on (described HERE). Any similar workaround like this is a burden to maintain however, because it relies on calling navw32.exe – whose path constantly changes between program updates. In some of the comments from the threads referenced above, some ppl have suggested that maybe the file managers are doing something wrong… but beyond the seeming definitive response from Mohan_G, I can otherwise tell you that things went from working to not working ONLY due to the update by Symantec - withOUT any update or config change to Directory Opus.
Further, if you open other native Windows applications (such as Notepad), every other context menu item on some of our systems appears - but NOT the NIS context menu. So, without doubt - either NIS is now wholesale blocking most other apps OTHER than Windows Explorer, or perhaps a code change was made to ~tighten the extension in some way that some value all these other apps are passing is being rejected by NIS, or there’s some newer method (?) that NIS has switched to other than the traditional method of calling the extensions IContextMenu interface that NIS has switched to… All some of us users really know is that it went from working to not working because of a change made by Symantec. If NIS is NOT wholesale blocking apps other than Windows Explorer, and have simply done somethign to tighten code which only got tested with Explorer, then I can attest that the makers of Directory Opus (GPSoft) would very likely be willing to work with Symantec - if there were an avenue through which to do so.
This is a discriminatory disservice to paying Symantec customers who rely on power apps like Opus for their day to day file management needs. We deserve a cogent explanation – free from conjecture and opinion, and preferably – some help in getting back some equivilant functionality that isn’t burdensome to maintain.
Any guidance from forum ppl here on how to get this from Symantec?