I am a seasoned computer user who made the mistake of adopting OnlineFamily.Norton prematurely (apparently). Recently the “paw” has been missing from the notification area (on all accounts), which seems to correlate with all online activity being blocked. Previously, the problem ‘subsided’ after a few reboots. However, I have now warm/cold booted the OS several times with no change. Even in the administrator account (which is supposedly not monitored) all web access is blocked. I can neither (even as a windows administrator) stop the OFN service nor uninstall SafetyMinder (the splash screen seems to run forever). I consider this to be a catastrophic bug and will ABSOLUTELY uninstall OFN at my first opportunity. I had thought this “free” solution was a panacea for those of us who don’t want a NetNanny subscription but need more control than K9 provides. However, I suspect that the only reason the service is currently free is because of these completely system-disabling errors. Thanks. Things really changed when Peter left.
Some of the following may be superfluous, but it worked. 1) Reboot in SAFE mode. 2) Login as an administrator (hereafter USER) 3) Give FULL ACCESS permissions to USER for the directories NORTON FAMILY ONLINE and NORTON INSTALLER 4) Rename both directories (I changed the trailing character to an underscore [“_”]) 5) Reboot normally 6) Login as USER 7) Delete both directories (see above) 7) Try to UNINSTALL OFN and SafeMinder (will fail, so just let Windows remove them from list) 8) Clean the registry (I suggest CCleaner) This doesn’t remove all traces of OFN, but at least the machine is usable again. I suppose to be more thorough, one might reinstall OFN/SafeMinder and then try to do a standard uninstall.
HI tamastslikt,
I'm sorry to hear you're having some trouble using the program. What security product(s) do you have on the PC? If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to setup a remote desktop access and work together with you on this. You're welcome to send me a private message or an email for details. You can find my email address at http://community.norton.com/norton/profile?user.id=15038.
Thanks,
Katie