My deskside x486 PC running Windows XP PRO (SP3 with all known updates) is utilizing NIS 2009 (16.5.0.135). About 2 weeks ago, I uninstalled ESET's NOD32 A/V product as license was expiring. I installed NIS 2009 after first running the NORTON REMOVAL TOOL to get rid of remnants of an older NSW install from years ago. The NIS 2009 install and updating process appeared to go without a hitch. Just as a precaution, before loading NIS 2009, I also fully removed Spysweeper as I'd read the two aren't necessarily well suited for parallel real-time running. Additionally, I did remove Windows Defender.
The first couple of days with NIS 2009 seemed to go without issue, but on the third day, I noticed that a custom overnight full scan did NOT run as expected AND my definitions were not updating (at least it told me they were updated "17 hours ago"). I tried hitting the LIVE UPDATE button, but did not see any change in the definitions updated indicator--still said "17 hours ago" and the little date drop down showed the previous days date as the last time an update had occured. So, I then proceeded to restart the PC and noticed ccSvchst.exe was not responding. I let 20 minutes go by to see if ccSvchst might "pagein"/reawaken, but it never did so I hit the END TASK button and the PC did then shutdown. Upon restart, NIS2009 seemed to start working again as expected and I could see that automatic and pulse updates were regularly occuring again and my overnight custom scan ran as scheduled. Only ran properly for about another 8 hours and then the automatic/pulse updates seemed to hang again. Had to manually end the ccSvchst.exe to get PC to allow restart. Went round and round in this fashion over the next week.
In desperation, I entered into a Symantec/Norton chat session and the analyst peered into my PC but found nothing obvious with my install. The analyst did alter AutoEndTasks registry key value from "0" to "1" so that ccSvchst.exe could be ended automatically whenever I tried to restart. Analyst then uninstalled my NIS 2009 and re-installed just to make sure nothing odd happening at install. All seemed to go well. Ran fine for about 29 hours, but then the same scenario started up and I noticed automatic/pulse updated came to a halt and my overnight custom scan did not run. Restarted PC this morning and it has run fine for about 5 hours.
Anyone have any suggestions for some next steps? I'm perplexed about the seeming instability issue with my NIS 2009 install and have limited confidence I'm truly receiving continual real-time protection...
Windows XP PRO (SP3) - IE 7.0.5730.11 - NIS 2009 Ver 16.5.0.135 - SpywareBlaster Ver 4.1 - MBAM 1.36