Im weird in that I want my desktop to be as clean as humanly possible, whatever is in the taskbar or system tray - I can live with but I want a pure desktop background with nothing on it.
However, everytime I reboot (after deleting the norton icon), Norton 360 reinstates it's desktop icon. Besides not being aesthetically pleasing, its also useless (as its integrated into the shell and in the hidden system tray icons).
Having gone through everysingle setting in Norton 360 - I cannot find a box to uncheck for show desktop icon.
Is it possible at all to remove this useless desktop icon or not?
Im weird in this sense that this minute aesthetic issue is a big enough of an issue for me to use a competing AV product next time round..
What operating system are you running. You may find it easier to disable the sidebar since you don't make use of it. There may be different methods of doing that depending on the operating system.
I am running XP SP3 and although I am using Comcast Norton Security Suite (which is identical to Norton 360), I just right clicked on the Norton icon, selected Delete, verified the deletion, and rebooted and the Norton icon did not reappear after reboot on my Desktop. Have I missed something?
Right click on the toolbar and scroll to toolbars and uncheck desktop for a icon- less desktop. Right click on toolbar and click on properties and click autohide and the toolbar will disappear. Amazing.For Vista, maybe XP.
The desktop icon, that is a picture situated on the computer desktop on top of the desktop background aka wallpaper that is hyperlinked to an executable file situated somewhere else (typically c:\program files\vendor name\executable.exe).
Sometimes the icon is also referred to as a shortcut.
I'm running windows 7, there is no "gadget" on the right hand side.
That could help. I am also running Win 7 on two machines, and both have an automatic gadget on the right. It could be that N360 is different, but the icon is quite easy to get rid of usually. The gadget could be a bit more problematic.
I'm really struggling to understand how it is that you can't grasp what I'm referring to as the desktop icon.
Screenshot should be attached, Norton icon not visible now (just deleted it) but another one is (that red one) . After I've deleted it, it remains deleted until I reboot - when Norton magically reinstalls the icon.
Its not a startup process I can stop, its not a setting I can find in norton 360.
This dekstop icon thing has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that is or would be on the taskbar or system tray. This is specifically a desktop icon/shortcut issue. No gadget/widget thing either..
Just for grins, I do believe another standard removal procedure would be to drag the offending Icon to the Recycling Bin Icon on the desktop - but I would venture you do not have a Recycle Bin Icon either!
Just for grins - as I stated before, everytime I delete it by dragging it to the recycle bin, deleting it from the folder etc.. it comes back after a reboot!
This feels like talking to an outsourced to India first level support - I've quite explicitly explained my issue and instead of working to a solution I've spent my time explaining to you what a desktop icon is and so forth.
Argh.
So let's just upgrade this a little bit.
Through msconfig - there is no startup process related to installing a desktop icon
through norton 360 settings - there is no option to "never display a desktop icon"
so either - its a bug (obvious feature overlooked by norton development team) or theres a registry value I can edit. So which is it?
Apparently, non of us have suffered from from the unremovable icon from Hades, which might mean that there was a glitch in the installation. When you installed Comcast, was there any other security software installed, and how was it removed? Have you got any other real time security products on board?
Since we don't know you, and can't see your machine, and have no idea why an icon should show such determination to stay, we have to ask a number of pointless and unhelpful questions. Hang in there.
delphinium: I'm an IT professional with multiple major vendor certifications (microsoft, citrix, vmware) - so please do try to "speed through" the tier 1 support script ;)
I've actually given serious thought to upgrading this home premium installation to ultimate, joining a domain and locking the desktop icons through a server. But there must be a way to do it normally.
I could understand the "bug via missing feature" if this was a 1.0 product but this is version 4, and since Norton has been doing this for years and years - its basically version 17.5.4.3 or whatever. So, I struggle to see how they could all of a sudden make such an oversight.
Nothign to do with comcast. I have a clean install of windows 7 with no hardware vendor "crapware". Prior to installing Norton 360 I made sure that the previous AV vendors software had successfully uninstalled, deleted registry keys and any folders it had created. Norton installed itself with no errors and no errors in the setup log either.
Since I'm the only one that has met the desktop icon from hades, I guess I'll have to open the registry and read the values of all the keys pertaining to norton. some value must be different. I just assumed sombody else had already met this same obstackle
One would think, with those credentials, you could assassinate one little icon. We are not support, just users like yourself, who volunteer in spite of the occasional abuse, to try to help other users. I sincerely hope that you discover the magic button.
Since I'm the only one that has met the desktop icon from hades, I guess I'll have to open the registry and read the values of all the keys pertaining to norton. some value must be different. I just assumed sombody else had already met this same obstackle
You need to delete the Norton shortcut from the 'Public Desktop' folder: C:\Users\Public\Desktop
Your personal desktop is a combination of your own personal shortcuts plus the Public desktop shortcuts. Deleting the Norton shortcut from the Public desktop folder should resolve the issue. If this fixes the problem, then please mark Phil_D's post as the solution (not this post as this is simply an addendum).
I seem to have developed the exact same problem. Justg purchased the product yesterday and installed after a clean OS load.
Windows 7 (64 bit)
Im deleting it off the desktop after every boot. My Public Desktop folder is empty. Nothing obvious recreating it in the startup methods. any other suggestions?
We are not support, just users like yourself, who volunteer in spite of the occasional abuse, to try to help other users. I sincerely hope that you discover the magic button.