I updated three of our in-house systems yesterday (9/7/11) from NIS2011 to NIS2012 using the "Check for New Version" feature and now all three are having IE Browser lockups and crashes anytime a website that uses NIS recorded login info is accessed. FWIW: I found numerous (recent) reports of this issue in the Beta forums postings.
The three affected systems are as follows:
#1 Windows 7 Pro 32Bit, IE 9.
#2 Windows 7 Pro 64Bit, IE 9.
#3 Windows XP Pro 32Bit, IE8.
All three are current on Microsoft service packs, updates and patch installations, etc. All three were working perfectly on NIS2011 prior to installing the 2012 upgrade.
At this point I'd just like to revert all three back to the most recent NIS2011 build which they were on previously. Then I'll hold off on updating until I get some official indication that these lockup issues have been addressed by Symantec.
Can someone point me to an official procedural outline for doing this?
Sorry you experienced IE crashes - we will be collecting crash information automatically from Norton users to work on stability improvement patches for 2012.
To downgrade to 2011, you should be able to re-use your current product key.
First I would recommend exporting / backing up your Identity Safe profile if you are using one.
I would uninstall 2012 and download the NIS 2011 install from here: http://www.norton.com/nis11 During the install you should be able to use your product key again.
I followed your instructions using the 2011 install image at the download link you provided. Glad to say that all three systems are fully functional again.
Any improvements made on this front as of yet? We suspect not since we just tried NIS2012 again and can confirm that the NIS2012 IE browser plugins are still unstable with numerous websites, not unlike the instability issues many are encountering with the Chrome NIS2012 plugins.
Some websites using radio select buttons are especially problematical. Roadrunner’s webmail website is particularly bad at causing IE browser lockups with the NIS2012 plugins. Interestingly enough, when the website becomes unresponsive, a new browser tab can be manually opened, the current URL of the frozen webpage copied and pasted to the address line of the new tab, and the webpage will return to full functionality on the new tab as though nothing wrong had happened. However, the frozen tab remains nonresponsive and must be manually closed.
Of course, reverting back to NIS2011 again solves these issues.