Let me begin by saying that I’m an architect, not a programmer. I have a small firm in the southeast US with a handful of computers (all WinXP Pro sp3). I need to tell you my story in order to ask for your advice & opinions…
Sunday afternoon I purchased a 5 pack of NAV 2010 for download to my various computers happy that I was saving myself some $$$. The first computer already had Ghost 14 installed & NAV 2009 with an expired subscription (thus the need for purchase). Installation worked just fine on this one. Second computer, however, had Ghost 10 installed & NAV 2009. Went to download & received the following error, “drive\path\NAVDownloader[1].exe The parameter is incorrect”. I tried again with the same result. Then I saved the file rather that selecting “Run”. Tried to “Run” from saved location & received the same error. So I contacted tech support by online chat beginning around 6:00pm. He requested remote access, which I granted, put the computer into safe mode, and proceeded to delete Temp files, etc. Next he ran a utility to clean up after a failed installation attempt & another to remove all Norton programs (without pausing or questioning whether there were others that I may have wanted to keep). This promptly erased Ghost 10. Then he installed NAV 2010 seemingly without problem until it came time to start the program. It appeared as though everything was okay, but it just wouldn’t start (no error message). At this point he stops, says I probably have a virus & he would like to transfer me to the “fee-based virus removal specialist team”. I ask why fee-based when my computer has been continuously protected by your software? He says viruses often prevent installation of AV software & that the other dept. will evaluate & explain to me what should be done.
I wait & wait…by now it’s 7:30pm. This next guy joins my chat & apparently his sole mission in life is to get my CC number as quickly as possible so they can charge me $100. In fact, when I paused for 30 seconds or so to consider what I was doing before just mindlessly entering my number the phone rings. You guessed it…It was this guy wanting to walk me through entering my number. He says its probably a virus & should only take the analyst 30-40 minutes to repair (nearly 8pm by now).
Third guy, the analyst, comes on & takes a while to catch up then takes over by remote control. He zips in and quickly determines the he needs to restart as system service? and start deleting even more Temp files than the first guy (temp internet files, cookies, prefetch files, etc). He removes all Norton programs again & any references to Norton or Symantec in the registry and everywhere else. Of course, his MO is to zip in & do something for 30 seconds (without chatting) & then go away for 5 minutes leaving me to stare at the motionless screen wondering when he will return. No doubt he’s earning his $100 from 2 or 3 other unfortunate souls.
Around 9:45pm he finally does another install of NAV & it works this time. He tells me that the infection was in the registry of my computer; the browser helper object files were infected. I ask do these files normally become infected while under the protection of his software? He says I probably clicked on an advertisement pop up or fake alert message or downloaded some free software & unintentionally allowed the virus in. Not likely, because I use these computers for work & am very careful about downloading crap. Not to mention the “infected” computer was mine, not an employee’s. I feel defeated by now, it’s 10:00pm & I just want to get home to the wife & dinner. He’s kind enough to leave me a parting gift of handy tips on how to avoid future infection in a text file on my desktop before going. He also apologizes for taking longer than anticipated but says it was, “entirely due to the complexity of the issue”.
So I come in the next day & attempt to install a newly purchased Ghost 14 from CD on this machine (to replace the previously erased version 10). Autorun starts, I click install program, and guess what another even more generic “incorrect parameter” error. It’s earlier in the day this time & I’ve learned a few lessons about Norton tech support so I go to the forums. Wow, there’s multiple reports of this error & several indications that it may be related to conflicts btwn these 2 softwares (which seems odd being manuf by the same company and all). So I take what I believe was good advice & look into the NAV recent/security history. It’s registering the Ghost 14 drivervalidation.exe as an “unauthorized access blocked”. I go into the NAV misc settings & turn off “Norton Product Tamper Protection” & turn on “Settings Password Protection” as I read in a couple of posts & then attempted the Ghost install from CD. It worked & then downloading all the updates worked. I then rebooted & both programs continued to work. Then for the final frontier I decided to change the NAV misc settings back the way they were. Rebooted and both programs still appear to be working & coexisting in peace…
Now the question…did I do the Ghost install correctly?
And the opinion…did I get screwed out of $100 (and 4hrs) by tech support to fix what could have been a conflict btwn 2 of their own products???
Thanks for your time!