I look after a Windows 7 PC which rarely connects online, and have noticed that NIS 19.9 produces a “service is expired” error if too long is left between connections (eg. it’s been 5 weeks since it last went online, and I got this error). I’m presuming there is some sort of keep-alive check the software makes to verify its subscription, but we need virus protection (even with slightly out of date definitions) all the time. How often must this PC connect to keep the NIS service active?
bernleckie wrote:
I look after a Windows 7 PC which rarely connects online, and have noticed that NIS 19.9 produces a "service is expired" error if too long is left between connections (eg. it's been 5 weeks since it last went online, and I got this error). I'm presuming there is some sort of keep-alive check the software makes to verify its subscription, but we need virus protection (even with slightly out of date definitions) all the time. How often must this PC connect to keep the NIS service active?
You will keep the Subscription for 1 year from when you first activate the subscription. There are no requirements to turn on any computer to keep this active.
As you summize, it is probably just the malware definitions that are in need of updating when you do eventually turn on the computer. It would be a good idea to run LiveUpdate manually a few times, rebooting as necessary, until no updates are available, to make sure you are fully up to date before going out on the web.
No, the service definitely does expire. I experience this all the time when I restore a PC image from an image (I use Acronis to take disk images) from say 2 months prior. The effect is exactly as if you didn't turn on your computer for 2 months. A few weeks is definitely ok, but somewhere around 6 weeks or more, and the service expires. It's easy enough to fix by "Checking Subscription Status" - but that requires that you have a live internet connection. It appears Norton dont want people using NIS on machines that are not connected to the Internet.
Thanks Peterweb - I'm sure you have lots of experience with this. I'm surprised, however, because the "service has expired" error has come up more than once in the past when there has been a long time between updates.
Just to clarify, it's not that this PC is rarely used, but it's rarely connected to the internet. So it's not that it was just switched on after five weeks, but five weeks ago was the last time I did a monthly maintenance run (connecting online, applying new Windows Updates, running a Live Update on Norton, backing up, etc...)
It wasn't hard to get the subscription checked and the service back up and running, but it is a big concern that there might have been preventable gaps in service.
If you've tested and are sure the service expiration is not down to time between online check-ins, I'll sign this one off and post more info next time we get the error, because we'll still be looking for the cause! Thanks.
bernleckie wrote:Thanks Peterweb - I'm sure you have lots of experience with this. I'm surprised, however, because the "service has expired" error has come up more than once in the past when there has been a long time between updates.
Just to clarify, it's not that this PC is rarely used, but it's rarely connected to the internet. So it's not that it was just switched on after five weeks, but five weeks ago was the last time I did a monthly maintenance run (connecting online, applying new Windows Updates, running a Live Update on Norton, backing up, etc...)
It wasn't hard to get the subscription checked and the service back up and running, but it is a big concern that there might have been preventable gaps in service.
If you've tested and are sure the service expiration is not down to time between online check-ins, I'll sign this one off and post more info next time we get the error, because we'll still be looking for the cause! Thanks.
The preventable gaps in serviceare only because you disconnect from the internet for the extended period of time. If you are disconnected, the only concern is if you are using a pen drive or CDs to bring content into the PC. Then you could be vulnerable to any malware created after your last virus definitions. If you do not do this, you have nothing to worry about.
Norton is giving this error, because you have not updated the definitions for quite some time. Normally, they will be updated many times a day with the Pulse updates. It thinks your product is out of date and at risk.
Bottom line to your original concern, your subscription is still valid, even if you never connect to the internet for many months. As long as you are within the 1 year from first activation, you will get the updated definitions when you do finally connect.
Hi bernleckie,
If you have not connected to internet for 30 days, you will get 'Check subscription' message. This feature is to keep the product up to date. Once you connect to internet, your subscription will be updated automatically.
Your product will be fully functional even when your service has expired. But you will not be able to get latest definitions as Internet is not available .Hence it is better to connect to internet and update periodically.
Kindly let us know if you need more info.
Thanks!
Thanks Sunitha, that makes perfect sense. It’s a PC which is used twice a week in a church, and people bring things in on USB drives, but as we only connect it to the Internet once a month for Windows updates, I guess this was happening on the five week “months”. Good to know that the protection is still on even if definitions are old, and yes, obviously it would be ideal to connect a bit more often! Many thanks.
bernleckie wrote:
Thanks Sunitha, that makes perfect sense. It's a PC which is used twice a week in a church, and people bring things in on USB drives, but as we only connect it to the Internet once a month for Windows updates, I guess this was happening on the five week "months". Good to know that the protection is still on even if definitions are old, and yes, obviously it would be ideal to connect a bit more often! Many thanks.
When the subscription has expired, the product protection will stop working all together. This is by design, so out of date virus definitions do not give a false sense of security.
Also, be carefull with people bringing in USB drives. If they happen to have some malware that was created after your last connection to the internet for virus updates, you could still get infected.
It might be worth connecting each week to do all your updates for Windows and Norton.
peterweb wrote:
When the subscription has expired, the product protection will stop working all together. This is by design, so out of date virus definitions do not give a false sense of security.
Thanks again, peterweb. That's a surprise because it contradicts what Sunitha wrote. I can understand it, though - are you sure?
The way I see it, protection against the vast majority of malware (i.e. everything up to the most recent) presents fewer security risks than no protection at all. In situations where a PC is useful but frequent internet connection is impractical (e.g. a data crunching PC in the back of an old church building which isn't fully networked), I would steer away from security products which withdraw protection entirely on the basis of being a bit out of date.
bernleckie wrote:
peterweb wrote:When the subscription has expired, the product protection will stop working all together. This is by design, so out of date virus definitions do not give a false sense of security.
Thanks again, peterweb. That's a surprise because it contradicts what Sunitha wrote. I can understand it, though - are you sure?
The way I see it, protection against the vast majority of malware (i.e. everything up to the most recent) presents fewer security risks than no protection at all. In situations where a PC is useful but frequent internet connection is impractical (e.g. a data crunching PC in the back of an old church building which isn't fully networked), I would steer away from security products which withdraw protection entirely on the basis of being a bit out of date.
As long as your subscription is current, you are fully protected. On expiration of the subscription, the program will cease to function.
If your computer were constantly connected to the internet, you would see this as it happens. Each time Norton is connected to the internet, the subscription servers are checked and the local program updated with the subscription information. As long as you have days left, the program will work.
The reason the program stops working without a current subscription, is that there are tens of thousands of new malware and variants released every day. If Norton allowed you to continue scanning with old definitions and you got infected by one of these new problems, a user will blame Norton for a problem that is not their fault.
I do not want to put words into Sunitha's mouth, but I think the statements were regarding the original Service message you were talking about. The product will work as long as it thinks you still have a valid subscription.
OK, thanks. Not an answer I particularly like, but I believe it! In future, Norton will still be our go-to solution for machines which we can be sure will connect online fairly often (at least once every 30 days!) and won't be something we use anywhere else.
Hi bernleckie,
Connecting many unvetted USB drives on a machine with outdated virus definitions makes me very nervous (even with up-to-date definitions, this is a very risky thing to do). I would certainly recommend updating Norton as frequently as possible - at least prior to inserting any new USB drives. I also hope that the computer is not used for any critical or sensitive church work, that no information that should be kept private is stored on it, and that it is kept isolated from any other computers that are used for official church operations. What you are doing with this PC is about as risky as can be - a lot of very serious data-stealing malware and other threats use USB drives to propogate - so you really need to treat this computer accordingly.
Thanks SendOfJive - it's a very specialist-use machine for data projection, no sensitive data whatsoever, and isolated by the very fact that it's not networked, otherwise it would be online and frequentlly updated. USB connections are all from trusted people, but we know that unprotected machines can infect everyone's drives once one bad drive has connected.
That's why trying to mitigate against that is important to us, but it's a question of how often this realistically needs to be done, and managing an acceptable risk of not always having the very latest malware definitions. Ultimately, of course it's better to update more frequently - thanks for the reminder. But my surprise was in the protection service stopping completely after 30 days without an internet connection. That's much more than a nag about best practice, it's a significant extra risk we'd avoid with different software.
bernleckie wrote:Thanks SendOfJive - it's a very specialist-use machine for data projection, no sensitive data whatsoever, and isolated by the very fact that it's not networked, otherwise it would be online and frequentlly updated. USB connections are all from trusted people, but we know that unprotected machines can infect everyone's drives once one bad drive has connected.
That's why trying to mitigate against that is important to us, but it's a question of how often this realistically needs to be done, and managing an acceptable risk of not always having the very latest malware definitions. Ultimately, of course it's better to update more frequently - thanks for the reminder. But my surprise was in the protection service stopping completely after 30 days without an internet connection. That's much more than a nag about best practice, it's a significant extra risk we'd avoid with different software.
I think we are still talking about different things.
The protection does not stop after 30 days of no internet connection. Your Norton will continue to work, although without the latest definitions. The protection stops after 1 year from when the Norton subscription key was first activated. You then need to renew or repurchase another subscription.
It is the subscription to the malware definition updates that expires and will stop the program from functioning the first time you connect to the internet after expiration.
So it is only once a year you have to worry about a non functioning anti virus. Then you just need to renew the subscription, and you are good for another year.
Hope this helps.
peterweb wrote:So it is only once a year you have to worry about a non functioning anti virus. Then you just need to renew the subscription, and you are good for another year.
That is only mostly true. Actually, anytime that the program loses track of the date and cannot verify that it is still within the subscription period, the program will shut down completely. This can happen if the system clock gets out of whack. To be honest, I'm not sure what the status of berleckie's program is after a prolonged period of no internet connection. It would be helpful to know the exact wording of the Norton alert that is appearing. It may be a protection alert concerning definitions being out of date, or it may be a program expired notification.