I was puzzled as to where my C: drive free space was going until I started looking in my windows User\AppData\local\VirtualStore\ProgramData\ directory and found a 'Norton' directory which was taking up >23GB. Moving down that directory chain I found that a subdirectory 'VirusDefs' was the culprit and it seemed to have subdirectories in it for every set of definitions downloaded by NIS since I installed it. Each dir had a name like '20130911.017' and was more than 100MB in size and, as I said, there were almost 200 of them.
I tried to take this up with the Chat techs but with miserable results so I'm taking it here.
Because I believe these are not active in use, I deleted the first (by date) 75 or so and got back 12GB of free space. Then asked NIS20. to run it's "problem diagnostic". It passed so I believe this was OK to do.
This may be a Windows issue and not Symantec but does anyone know how to solve this?
Anyone else seen this?
I just today upgraded to NIS21. Will this version have the same issue?
I was puzzled as to where my C: drive free space was going until I started looking in my windows User\AppData\local\VirtualStore\ProgramData\ directory and found a 'Norton' directory which was taking up >23GB. Moving down that directory chain I found that a subdirectory 'VirusDefs' was the culprit and it seemed to have subdirectories in it for every set of definitions downloaded by NIS since I installed it. Each dir had a name like '20130911.017' and was more than 100MB in size and, as I said, there were almost 200 of them.
I tried to take this up with the Chat techs but with miserable results so I'm taking it here.
Because I believe these are not active in use, I deleted the first (by date) 75 or so and got back 12GB of free space. Then asked NIS20. to run it's "problem diagnostic". It passed so I believe this was OK to do.
This may be a Windows issue and not Symantec but does anyone know how to solve this?
Anyone else seen this?
I just today upgraded to NIS21. Will this version have the same issue?
Sorry I was so short w/ you last night and not clear.
No trial software. I wiped system and loaded Windows 7 Home Premium then upgraded to Pro from disk & downloads. Only AV was Norton IS2013 which I downloaded from Norton site.
I wish I had more understanding of VirtualStore's functionality. As I said, I acknowledge that this may be as a result of Msft design, but I've seen other folks complaining about disk space loss and it may be that they just didn't know how to look into these hidden places to find this issue.
Even if this is a Msft design problem, I'd have hoped Symantec would have figured a way around or at least know what I have to do to solve.
Have done some more investigation into the use of 'Virtual Store' in Vista, Windows 7, etc. Apparently, it is a method to keep programs from writing into protected areas of system like c:\Program Files\. The program not running as Administrator thinks it is writing somewhere but actually the OS sends it to 'Virtual Store' instead.
Absent a comment to the contrary here from a Norton expert, here's my guess: The programming for NIS20. was not done completely correctly per Microsoft's grand plan. Somehow, the installation files for the Live Update definitions were left piling up in 'Virtual Store' under some circumstances (like mine). Frankly, I have found many complaints about other software which left files there like this on the Microsoft forums.
So far, I have not seen NIS21's files pile up like NIS20 did in the Live Updates that have run so far. Maybe they have fixed this problem. If so, I'd suggest moving to 21 if you have any inkiing that you are having similar disk space loss as I did.
I still would like to hear from someone at Symantec on this issue and also when I can delete more of these NIS20 files so I can recover the other 13GB of disk space still tied up. How far back do I need to keep them?
I was puzzled as to where my C: drive free space was going until I started looking in my windows User\AppData\local\VirtualStore\ProgramData\ directory and found a 'Norton' directory which was taking up >23GB. Moving down that directory chain I found that a subdirectory 'VirusDefs' was the culprit and it seemed to have subdirectories in it for every set of definitions downloaded by NIS since I installed it. Each dir had a name like '20130911.017' and was more than 100MB in size and, as I said, there were almost 200 of them.
I tried to take this up with the Chat techs but with miserable results so I'm taking it here.
Because I believe these are not active in use, I deleted the first (by date) 75 or so and got back 12GB of free space. Then asked NIS20. to run it's "problem diagnostic". It passed so I believe this was OK to do.
This may be a Windows issue and not Symantec but does anyone know how to solve this?
Anyone else seen this?
I just today upgraded to NIS21. Will this version have the same issue?
Sorry I was so short w/ you last night and not clear.
No trial software. I wiped system and loaded Windows 7 Home Premium then upgraded to Pro from disk & downloads. Only AV was Norton IS2013 which I downloaded from Norton site.
I wish I had more understanding of VirtualStore's functionality. As I said, I acknowledge that this may be as a result of Msft design, but I've seen other folks complaining about disk space loss and it may be that they just didn't know how to look into these hidden places to find this issue.
Even if this is a Msft design problem, I'd have hoped Symantec would have figured a way around or at least know what I have to do to solve.
Have done some more investigation into the use of 'Virtual Store' in Vista, Windows 7, etc. Apparently, it is a method to keep programs from writing into protected areas of system like c:\Program Files\. The program not running as Administrator thinks it is writing somewhere but actually the OS sends it to 'Virtual Store' instead.
Absent a comment to the contrary here from a Norton expert, here's my guess: The programming for NIS20. was not done completely correctly per Microsoft's grand plan. Somehow, the installation files for the Live Update definitions were left piling up in 'Virtual Store' under some circumstances (like mine). Frankly, I have found many complaints about other software which left files there like this on the Microsoft forums.
So far, I have not seen NIS21's files pile up like NIS20 did in the Live Updates that have run so far. Maybe they have fixed this problem. If so, I'd suggest moving to 21 if you have any inkiing that you are having similar disk space loss as I did.
I still would like to hear from someone at Symantec on this issue and also when I can delete more of these NIS20 files so I can recover the other 13GB of disk space still tied up. How far back do I need to keep them?