Hi FrancisE_Neil:
You should not have any problems performing a clean reinstall of the latest Norton Antivirus Plus v22.24.7.8 (rel. 07-Aug-2024) as long as your Win 7 SP1 OS is patched to end of support on 14-Jan-2020. If your Win 7 SP1 OS is patched to end of support then the KB4474419 update (rel. 10-Sep-2019) that adds SHA-2 code signing support for digital certificates should already be installed.
NOTE: Check you current version number at Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features or click Help in the main window and go to General Information | About as instructed in the support article Find the version number of your Norton product
For a clean reinstall of Norton use the Norton Remove and Reinstall Tool (NRnR) in the advanced “Remove Only” mode as instructed in the support article Uninstall your Norton device security product on Windows.
Also, never run a Windows system restore unless you temporarily disable Norton Product Tamper Protection first or you might damage your Norton installation - see the support article Fix System Restore problems with Norton product installed.
I assume KB4474419 is already installed on your system - if not, you would not be able to run Norton v22.21.3 or higher products on your Win 7 SP1 OS (see employee Gayahtri_R’s April 2021 announcement SHA 2 Code Signing Support for Windows 7 for more information). To confirm that KB4474419 is installed, go to Control Panel | Programs and Features | View Installed Updates and search for “KB4474419” (without the quotes).
NOTE: When searching, enter the full KB number in the search box (i.e., “KB4474419” and not a partial string like “4474419”). For some reason I can no longer post images in this forum, but my sample image <here> in the CCleaner forum shows what you should see when you search your installed updates for a specific KB number.
If KB4474419 IS NOT installed post back let us know if you have a 32-bit or 64-bit Win 7 SP1 OS and I’ll provide instructions on how to install this missing update. Instructions were posted in my 18-Feb-2024 post in MsN_Bhatti’s How to fix Live Update Failed Error 8504, 102 but that old forum topic has been archived and a few links in that post are now broken so I’ll be happy to re-post those instructions if they are required.
If KB4474419 IS installed, I would strongly advise that you first remove all traces of the iObit antivirus / anti-malware software before trying a clean reinstall of your Norton antivirus.
Please let us know the exact name and version number of the iObit software you installed (e.g., IObit Malware Fighter 11 Free v11.4.0). Even if you have already uninstalled this IObit software it’s possible you have some orphaned file or registry entry on your system that is now interfering with Norton. Like most other antivirus manufacturers, Norton advises that you only run one antivirus or anti-malware program that loads at Windows startup and runs in real-time protection mode - see the Norton support article Problems running multiple security products.
Norton also advises that you wipe the last traces of any other antivirus product off your system using the manufacturer’s dedicated removal tool before installing your Norton antivirus, and they provide information on how to wipe security software from Avast, McAfee, and other antivirus manufacturers off your system in the support article Remove a non-Norton security product from your computer. Unfortunately, IObit isn’t listed in that support article, but if you let us know what iOBIt product you installed we might be able to find the correct IOBit removal tool for you.
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4780 * Firefox v129.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24070.5-1.1.24070.3 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.9.124-1.0.5014 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783