How to prevent Norton 360 Internet Explorer Plug-In (Add-On) From Being Disabled

Features of the Norton 360 product are being disabled by vulnerable, younger family members, putting our home network at risk. And it is not their fault! Microsoft Windows shows them how to do it, even suggests that they do it. I need Norton (Symantec) to provide a method to PREVENT browser Plug-Ins (Add-Ons) from being disabled.

 

The computer user has their own least-privilege user account (not a member of Administrators group). When the user opens Internet Explorer, the following option is offered, "Speed up browsing by disabling add-ons". See screenshot:

screenshot1.jpg

 

Next, of course, a menu is displayed allowing any of Norton's Plug-Ins (Add-Ons) to be disabled.

screenshot2.jpg

 

This significantly reduces the functionality of the Norton 360 product and amounts to false advertising by Norton on the features and functions available. How to prevent this!?

You may try to configure via Group Policy Editor to restrict users from enabling/disabling add-ons. You need to do it after logging into the Administrator Account. Here are the steps:

1. Click Start > Run and type GPEDIT.MSC
2. Navigate to this path:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer
3. Double-click Do not allow users to enable or disable add-ons.
4. Set it to Enabled.

5. Exit and restart the computer.

 

Let me know if this helped you.

 

Thanks,

HarryP

Thanks, I'll give it a try and let you know.

 

This solution is a bit of a pain, I'll have to login to every computer in our home network and then, once done, this is a global "sledge hammer" response - is no way to separately manage Norton's Plug-Ins (Add-Ons)!?

 

It would be nice if (product enhancement request?)

1. Norton's installer took care of this automatically

2. The Plug-In (Add-On) could be selectively "locked down" so only Norton's were fixed in the "enabled" setting. 

 

If I switched to FireFox, would any of these concerns be easier to manage?


geogherkins wrote:

 

Features of the Norton 360 product are being disabled by vulnerable, younger family members, putting our home network at risk. And it is not their fault! Microsoft Windows shows them how to do it, even suggests that they do it.

 

[...]

 

Next, of course, a menu is displayed allowing any of Norton's Plug-Ins (Add-Ons) to be disabled.

screenshot2.jpg

 

[...]


Consider changing the value of the 'Tell me when the delay caused by add-ons exceeds:' dropdown in your screenshot above to 10 seconds. You will need to do this in each of your younger family members accounts. This should stop the 'Speed up browsing by disabling add-ons' prompt from appearing in those user accounts ie they will only see the prompt if an add-on takes more than 10 seconds to load. If your younger users are simply disabling the add-ons as a reaction to this prompt, then this should solve your problem.

 

To access this setting, enable the 'Command bar' toolbar and select Tools > Toolbars > Disable add-ons.

HarryP,

 

Your solution (or bypass, really) works for Windows 7 Ultimate.

 

1. Can you provide a local security policy path for Windows XP? When I open GPEDIT.MSC the "Windows Components > Internet Explorer" folder does not exist. Considequently I cannot disable the Add-On prompts.

 

2. Unfortunately certain editions of Windows 7 like Home Premium, Home Basic and Starter Editions do not include the Group Policy Editor GPEDIT.MSC. I don't see a way to enable it from Microsoft. I see some 3rd-party "hacks" but I don't like to install system utilities unless they come from a trusted source. Does Norton offer a replacement GPEDIT.MSC tool to fix this problem?

 

Thanks