I bought 3 license version of NIS from PC World to replace my Norton 360 which expires today. Inserted the CD in the drive, pressed Install NIS - entered the code, and pressed the install button. After nothing happened for a while, I saw it was uninstalling. I thought it was uninstalling 360. As it turns out it has not Installed NIS, but has deleted every single programme, save point and driver on the laptop.
Including the DVD/CD drive driver, so I cannot install from a disk. I also cannot connect to the internet because it has deleted all the web browsers.
Norton's support is pathetic - the chat system is either busy or does not respond. I have got the clear message that Norton does not give a stuff about customers now it has their money.
Can any real person out there help me? Norton have comprehensively stiffed me.
paulwright wrote:
I bought 3 license version of NIS from PC World to replace my Norton 360 which expires today. Inserted the CD in the drive, pressed Install NIS - entered the code, and pressed the install button. After nothing happened for a while, I saw it was uninstalling. I thought it was uninstalling 360. As it turns out it has not Installed NIS, but has deleted every single programme, save point and driver on the laptop.
Including the DVD/CD drive driver, so I cannot install from a disk. I also cannot connect to the internet because it has deleted all the web browsers.
Norton's support is pathetic - the chat system is either busy or does not respond. I have got the clear message that Norton does not give a stuff about customers now it has their money.
Can any real person out there help me? Norton have comprehensively stiffed me.
I do not know if I am real. Many people have complained of the same peoblem as you. Did you check these forums before posting? The trouble to date is nobody really answers the questions asked or is savy enough to do so.
I still do not believe NIS is uninstalling your programs or is capable of doing so. Here is what I think is happening.
I think NIS was uninstalling N360. After the reboot, you probably did not remove the dvd disk. Windows crashed either because of a corrupted hard drive, malware or other reason. Windows then restored to the earliest available restore point and that was before your programs were installed. I suspect that restore points have been turned off.
It would be interesting to know if you can get into safe mode and/or normal mode. YOu could post your operating system and release. You could use Explorer to see if the programs (executable) is still present on the drive or has actually been removed. You could look at the registry and/or control panel and see if system restore points are active or disabled.
If you need help you should ask in this thread. I am sure someone can assist.
Thank you. That is the first contact I have had since this happened. I have been buying Norton products for about 10 years, and only now do i understand what an idiot I have been because they clearly have no interest in helping their customers at all. they are impossible to contact, and just ignore this problem . The worst customer service i have had in years.
No I did not remove the DVD when it rebooted - you are quite right about that. There is no earlier save point, so that is possible. There should be no major problems (and only N360 as a prevoius install) because the hard disk is only 6 months old).
Knowing what happened should help. Sadly there are no browsers or disk drives left on the system - hopefullly I shal be able to get Firefox on via a usb, and can start to rebuild from there.
I have not only wasted my money on this norton product it is going to cost me a lot of time, and they will not even respond to enquiries. Absolutely disgraceful.
Oh, and the live chat is a disgrace too. Ther is never any one there to respond.
I've never had to deal with Norton before and am shocked at how disgracefully poor they are. Shocked.
Hope its ok to post after a Guru has done so (Gurus seem to post after me so hopefully it is ok the other way around).
Just some thoughts.
Explorer is not Internet Explorer.
I would not get too carried away to recover your system before making sure you are malware free. If the system has restored that does not remove all malware. In fact some malware can survive even a reformat.
A good start is if you can re-enable restore points. If you cant that should tell you something.
Still no contact from the appallingly lax, complacent and uninterested people at Norton. A salutary lesson in the arrogance of market leaders I fear.
I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a Dell Inspiron laptop.
You are quite right - there are programmes still on the hard disk, but windows no longer seems to be able to find them on the desktop or to reinstall them. There does seem to be an issue about Administrator privileges, but being a standard uneducated person rather than an ICT tech I don't really understand what this all means.
I am wondering - legally who is responsible for the damage do you think? Norton, or the shop I bought my software from?
From the earlier comments this is a known problem that Norton has chosen to ignore. There is also consistent advice to use Norton removal tool before installing new products. Considering that they know these things why do Norton choose not to put that information on the instructions in their software? (or even better design software that does not need it, or does it automatically?). Deliberately no acting on a known problem is surely negligence?
I am afraid I am getting angrier and angrier with the lack of any help and support from Norton themselves.
@Dimension It is mostly QUADS you have to worry about!
@cgoldman I will have to agree. Never has Norton ever deliberately removed any program. I always remove MalwareBytes(FE), SUPERAntiSpyware(FE), and turn off any automated backup before install or any program that might interfere with installation. If that HD corruption happens to also contain a Restore Point I am not sure how Windows will respond!
@paulwright cgoldman is more than likely right!
System Restore is a bad thing! And NO, it does not keep a back up of all recently installed programs that do not tell the system to make a restore point! I have turned off since XP days when I used it to try to recover from a bad device driver. It totaly messed up my Antivirus virus database and removed some recently installed programs too!
Why did you purchase NIS from PC World and not from Norton EStore? Could you also provide the link you purchased and dowloaded it from?
paulwright wrote:
Still no contact from the appallingly lax, complacent and uninterested people at Norton. A salutary lesson in the arrogance of market leaders I fear.
I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a Dell Inspiron laptop.
You are quite right - there are programmes still on the hard disk, but windows no longer seems to be able to find them on the desktop or to reinstall them. There does seem to be an issue about Administrator privileges, but being a standard uneducated person rather than an ICT tech I don't really understand what this all means.
I am wondering - legally who is responsible for the damage do you think? Norton, or the shop I bought my software from?
From the earlier comments this is a known problem that Norton has chosen to ignore. There is also consistent advice to use Norton removal tool before installing new products. Considering that they know these things why do Norton choose not to put that information on the instructions in their software? (or even better design software that does not need it, or does it automatically?). Deliberately no acting on a known problem is surely negligence?
I am afraid I am getting angrier and angrier with the lack of any help and support from Norton themselves.
The fact that the programs are still on the hard disk means that the programs have not been uninstalled. What happens is that all the pointers relating to the program which are contained within the registry no longer exist. Again probably because the system has been restored to an earlier point when the registry had not been updated for these installed programs.
Sorry I cant answer the other questions and I do not wish to comment thereon.
Again, only trying to help. I suggest for all users, in so far as possible, keep a copy of the registry offline. There are some tools on the internet for some operating systems. Any restore is a pain but its easier if you actually have a restore file than not.
Hi paulwright,
I have sent you a Private Message ( 
). Please take a look at it when time permits.
This post has been moved to its own thread.
I bought NIS from PC world because it is always cheaper in the UK to buy a DVD for a new installation than to renew a license or download from the Norton site. Norton have a policy of attractive pricing for new customers and penalising existing customers for not shopping around. A fairly normal (if old fashioned) sales policy.
paulwright wrote:
I bought NIS from PC world because it is always cheaper in the UK to buy a DVD for a new installation than to renew a license or download from the Norton site. Norton have a policy of attractive pricing for new customers and penalising existing customers for not shopping around. A fairly normal (if old fashioned) sales policy.
Did you reply to Mohan's PM? Can you tell us (without giving personal information) what you were told or asked about?
If you are able to access the internet, I would suggest a scan using the FREE version of Malwarebytes. You can find it here http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/ Try using Safe Mode with Networking.
Mohan started to help me but appears to have stopped. He asked me to download and run some analysis software. I do not have a functioning browser that I can acess, but was able to get the softwarer on the laptop using Dropbox which is somehow still working. However when I tried to run the software I got a message that Windows could not find the programme on the path that i had specified (which is clearly where it is). I PMd that to Mohand a couple of days ago asking for help on what to do now, and he has not bothered to get back in touch.
I would be very grateful if he would. Or indeed anyone from Norton. My existing subscriptions have expired, but I am not willing to try installing NIS on my other machines until I know how it has messed up the one I have. So as a consequence of buying Norton i am out of pocket, down on machines, and reduced to running Microsoft antivirus.
For your other computers, if you decide to try to install NIS on a system that has Norton 360 installed, I recommend uninstalling 360 first using the Norton Removal Tool. Because they are 2 different programs it is best to have a fresh start.
Download the Norton Removal Tool from here www.norton.com/nrt
Download a fresh copy of NIS from here www.norton.com/nis20
If you use Identity Safe, backup/export your data. Use the CSV format for compatibility.
Uninstall your Norton product with Windows control panel.
Reboot.
Run the Norton Removal Tool.
Reboot.
Run the NIS installer.
Run LiveUpdate manually a few times, rebooting as necessary, until no updates are available.
Try to log into your Identity Safe. If you can, you are done. If not, Import your Identity Safe data.
paulwright wrote:
I bought NIS from PC world because it is always cheaper in the UK to buy a DVD for a new installation than to renew a license or download from the Norton site. Norton have a policy of attractive pricing for new customers and penalising existing customers for not shopping around. A fairly normal (if old fashioned) sales policy.
Sorry that I had miss read your post. I though maybe you had downloaded from a malicious site.
+1 on peterweb's instructions!
Also, if you don't feel comfortable with Microsoft, try using Comodo! It comes as either an internet suit or just an anti-virus!
You know that is perfectly reasonable advice. You would think that Norton would put it IN BIG LETTERS on the instructions, wouldn't you?
Of course they could also have written software that would have meant it was not necessary.
Customer support has lost interest in my after sending me 2 e-mails, they have not replied for 4 days. Really, I cannot remember having such poor customer support from any company at any time. Are they always this bad, or do they just not like me?
What email address did you send your requests to? Where did you get this address from?
Others here have tried to use an email address that they have used in the past, but the address was no longer monitored (employee changes, etc).
Have you tried contacting Support via online chat. You can find them at www.norton.com/chat
Not sure if it's changed, I use Acronis backups instead of system restore, but Norton Tamper protection used to not allow system restore to restore unless you turned tamper protection off or restored from safe mode. Not that it helps you now. Just A FYI in case that hasn't changed.
Every time I try chat I get the message about "unusual level of activity. No one available". For ever.
I am assuming that Norton has just one person trying to deal with chat.
And apparently no one else trying to help customers, or at least no one interested in helping me. The e-mails stopped on the 9th, and though I have asked for more help nothing is forthcoming.
Who do I sue? (not as much of a joke as I would like!)
The fact that the programs are still on the hard disk means that the programs have not been uninstalled. What happens is that all the pointers relating to the program which are contained within the registry no longer exist. Again probably because the system has been restored to an earlier point when the registry had not been updated for these installed programs.
.
From this information that your files were still on the HD, this now would be more of a Windows issue. It is probably caused by your restore.
Are you able to run a command prompt? If so run it as administrator. Type sfc /scannow to check your Windows files.
If that does not fix anything, you might try the Microsoft Answers forum to get some Windows experts to try to help.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us