Newbie's giving/getting no ticks for Norton?

Good evening!  I'm a new user of Norton 360 (3.8.0.41) & having backed-up to DVD for the first time, I noticed that some of my desktop icons then had green ticks or blue double arrows on them & that Google no longer shows any ticks against my search results.

 

Firstly, why has this happened? Did I do something wrong? Surely a simple back-up shouldn't change what I assume are default settings? By which I mean this - I figured out that un-ticking "Backup Status Overlays" removes the desktop ticks/arrows – but that’s set to "on" by default, surely?

 

I'm still unable to see why my Google results are now un-ticked & hope that someone can point me in the right direction?

 

One more thing – is it possible that Norton has somehow affected Word? Since the back-up (at least I think so? – the only other thing I did was download “Google Earth”), I can open a new document & save it but am then unable to access it or any of my existing documents unless I go through “Office”. Should I be looking elsewhere for this fix?

 

I'm sorry if this is something simple that I've missed, but am still working my way round all the stuff that comes with a new PC & as I’m sure you’ll have gathered, am not too savvy!

 

With thanks for your time & attention,

 

NigelUK