I know this has been addressed in many variations, but I haven't seen mine.
I am running NIA ver 19.7.1.5 on a Win XP sp 3 Dell Dimension 9100.
This problem has been happening for a long time (6 months?). I've hated it but haven't wanted to deal with tossing Norton for something that won't steal my computer from me.
Problem: At least 3 times a week, sometimes twice in one day, I'll be working, playing a game, browsing the internet, whatever, and my drive will start to spin and ...................... m......................y.....................................................m........................o............................u............ [you get the picture] mouse clicks aren't recognized for forever. It can take 2 minutes to switch from one browser page to another (I've timed it!). Almost as long to go one navigation step in Windows Explorer. Sometimes I can just get up and go do something else, but sometimes I can't. I find it WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!! I get no warning and Norton doesn't even bother to tell me that it is the one stealing my computer from me. I've had to pull up the task manager (w.........h........i........c.......h takes a few minutes) and hunt through the processes.
After reading other posts about this, I went to the Norton Tasks window.
--- Automatic LiveUpdate; last run = 7/27/2012 10:45 PM --- Duration 7 minutes 2 seconds. --- Ran during Idle = No.
--- Full System Scan; last run = 7/27/12 6:48 PM -- Duration 1 hour 52 minutes 47 seconds -- Ran during Idle = Yes.
--- Quick Scan ran at 2:43 pm for 5 minutes and 43 seconds during Idle time.
I am an at-home mom who does tons of work on my computer. Then i get up and eat dinner and put the kids to bed.
Now, I've read the advice about shortening the idle time. Like if I turn around to hug my child and stop typing for a minute it will be OK for live update to steal my computer for the next 10. Wrong. Or if I set it at 5 minutes and take a quick run to the restroom I'd get back to a computer that won't listen to me. I've got it set to 30 'cause if I'm gone that long I've probably gone to the grocery store. I did stop the full system scan at least once tonight. It is nice and stopped what it was doing to let me check something, then I went away and it started up again. But LiveUpdate? No. I'm finally fully fed up with Norton because I was indulging myself in playing Bejewled and was doing far better than I *ever* had before a........n..........d...........................t...........h............e............n.. I could not keep playing, although I tried.
So, I could
a) disable live update and remember to do this manually every day, except I'd not remember and may as well write a script to do that -- but HEY! Norton could do that FOR ME! It could ASK WHEN I'D LIKE IT RUN!!! What a stunningly considerate idea!
b) Jump through massive spider-web hoops to get Norton fully cleansed off my system (it has never known anything else) and find another provider
c) never try to get any work done in the evening (as this is when Live Update seems to think that I'm not actually using my computer.)
d) ??? (I've been sorely tempted to throw my monitor through the window, but I have to remind myself that it isn't my computer's fault.)
On the other hand, Norton / Live Update could
a) Let the user indicate time of day for attempts to run.
b) Don't force run during non-idle unless it has tried for a user-specified period of time and cannot find any idle time
c) Tell us it is running! (Yes, my task notification is turned on)
d) run at a lower priority so that the w.....e........c....a....n.......b....e......o.....n....l...y.......t....h....i...s........s....l....o...w
e) pay for a new monitor and window ( .... just kidding ...)
Just how often does Live Update try to run? There were only 3 hours between the full scan and the live update, and supposedly live update hadn't been able to find enough idle time to run. You are darn toot'n right about that. I WAS WORKING FOR 3 HOURS! WHAT A SHOCKING IDEA! (OK, so I switched to playing at the end. We all deserve that.)