norton 2009 IS doing keeps doing something...ill try to explain

running windows vista home.

 

every now and then my norton will "die" i guess. its wierd, never seen this before.

 

say if i open outlook, norton will then give me a popup on the bottom right and tell me that my definition are out of date and that i need to update, and when i update it gives me a 40.3mb download, then everything turns back on.

 

it doesnt do this only on outlook, it does it at odd moments when nothing is going on.

 

when the popup message for the definitions comes up, i also get one of those popups from my computer asking me if i want to allow norton to run, i have been clicking cancel because if i click ok nothing happens with norton, it just trys to update then stops. its like the thing is dying.

 

just now, i went to start/programs/nis and i see 4 icons in the folder, but they arent clickable. when i click on them it says the shortcut is bad would i like to delete....

 

any ideas as to whats going on with this thing.