I spent tonight trying to straighten out my mothers PC that got screwed up after a 360 update. As I found it Norton program screen would not come up from the tray or screen icon, nor the start menu. Trying to start Firefox or Explorer their program screens never come up but the process list shows their processes taking up some memory but not any CPU time. Pinging at the command prompt also yielded no response. Apparently internet connectivity is being blocked. Interestingly bringing up some programs like Word or others that don't connect to the wireless or internet seem to work. Trying to uninstall using the Program list in Control Panel or Norton 360 uninstall brings up the uninstall program that just sits there doing nothing (no increased CPU load, basically like still at idle).
Her machine is a Dell Inspiron 6400 running XP. I used the Norton master uninstaller program saved to USB drive using my own laptop. Would not work in normal windows operation, but rebooting it into safe mode would let the uninstaller do its job (regular uninstaller program, only learned there was a special 360V3 uninstaller a few minutes ago).
After doing the reboot it requests, after the computer comes up and relinks to wireless a Norton support window comes up for downloading and reinstalling software. Selecting the Norton 360 links apparently starts downloading the current standard download for Norton 360 Version 3. It installs fine but indicates its virus definitions are 68 days old. Run liveupdate, it does its installations and requests the machine be restarted to finish the job. The computer comes up in the same screwed up state I found it in. Went through this whole process against with a support technician on chat who tried to claim it was fine after the initial 360V3 download witht the 68 day old definitions, but then I got a little sharp with some comments and in response he ran liveupdate and found that he wasn't going to be able to get on the machine again. So I am not sure they are going to be much help. I have seen no reference that others have had this problem.
Fortunately he did give me a link (had links to chat on both my mom's machine and my own laptop) when asked for the version 2 software so right now her machine is fine using currently updated version 2 software (2.5.0.5) with current definitions.
Anyone else have their XP machine screwed up by the latest updates, which she said she originally downloaded on 5-4-09 that messed up her computer. Is it isolated to her machine or have others had the same problem? Specific hardware/software compatibility? I told her don't touch version 3 unless this glitch is fixed.
I too have a similar if not the same issue right now. I updated to 3.0 and a few days later had issues and I choose to do a restore to an earlier date. It went successful for the restore but something went way wrong with Norton. It has no path and I can not get online to down load the removal tool. Does anyone know how to remove Norton without the internet? In terms that a beginner would understand.
I had the same problem trying to update Norton 360 Premier Edition from ver 2, to ver3. My laptop is running Vista Ultimate. After getting the update to work, and only after a long chat session with tech support; I found several programs, some requiring internet access, and some not, would not start (showing on the process list, but not in the running applications list). Vista also became unstable, and extremely slow. I was able to get some of the programs to work, but Vista was still acting quirky.
After wasting a lot of time trying to find the cause; I found the only fix, was to uninstall ver 3, and restore ver 2. It seems the 'glitch' isn't confined only to machines running XP.
If you don't want to copy that link, go to www.norton.com, make sure 'Norton' is picked on the top menu bar, and then pick 'Download' on the lower menu bar. On that screen in the lower left corner you should see a heading called 'Support' and about halfway down the list below it you should see an item 'Norton Removal Tool'. That will take you the same place as the link above.
From the list choose your product. Since I did not know I was dealing with version 3 I picked "I have Norton 360" from the list. They actually have the choice of a version 3 removal tool just above it. Click on the desired link and it will tell you some information (like make sure you have the product key) and give you links to download budump.exe (step 3) and the removal tool (step 4). In all honestly last night I missed the part about budump.exe and never downloaded or ran it. Running budump first may make a difference in this case.
I had to use another functional computer to do the download and save it to a USB flashdrive.
Try attaching the flash drive to the computer with the damaged installation and see if you can run budump and the removal tool in the regular operating system. If not, do like I did and shutdown the machine and restart hitting F8 repeatedly until you get the screen that lets you pick safe mode operation. As I said I missed the budump part but was able to run the removal tool by itself in safe mode.
I gave the program a little time (20-30 sec) and watched the performance monitor in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) to see if the program started running noticeably increasing the CPU load. I also checked the process list to see if the program was using CPU time or not. In regular XP mode the CPU load stayed about in the 4-7% idling range. It was like the same thing that froze 360, the browsers, and the uninstaller also froze the removal tool program. I shut the computer down and in safe mode when it ran the load on one of the CPUs (newer Intel dual CPU model) shot up to about 50% when the program got going. It only took a few minutes for the removal tool to run.
My mom originally had version 2.0 downloaded online and recently accepted their offer to upgrade to 3.0 for free. If you have the disks for Version 2.0 reload it and update. If you got it online like my mother did I can give you the link I used to get Version 2 again.
To be honest I was hoping this would attract responses from others having the same problem.
I am not sure how well tech support feeds back to the software development people in their organization. I was using chat and convinced I was potentially dealing with an Indian. I hope they have someone at Symantec that watches these lists and if a number of people say they are having the same problem it will get their attention and they will fix whatever has gone horribly wrong with their recent update package for Version 3.
Until I am sure they have I would not reinstall version 3 and keep running an updated Version 2.
Thank you for taking the time to give me this information. I am going to attempt the downloading to the flash drive this evening when I get home. I will cross my fingers and hope for the best. I will post my update on my experience. My apologee if I have detoured your thread.
The un-installer for N360 v3 and the other Norton products is the same file; the difference is the extra files for Backup save and restore information. As to the system load issues, v3 may use a little more CPU load but nothing like you have experienced. Version 3 includes Pulse updates of definitions along with Insight and other components being updated to bring them inline with NIS2009 levels of protection.
With the issues you experienced, (if you are having problems with v2 now or want to move to v3 for the updated features) I would recommend using the NRT (twice in Safe Mode) before installing N360 v3 program. One note is that v3 includes more background functions and scans than v2 which in the beginning may load the system more than v2 did but once the Insight scan and Backup settings are done; this level should go down to v2 levels.
Sorry for your troubles. If you need anything else, ask.
Good . Glad that worked out for you. Amazing what can be done with those little pocket sticks; I have one about the size of your thumb nail (yes; a 'thumb drive') that boots and runs XP.
Anyway , if you need anything else, come back and ask.
Tried to use email upgrade for Norton 360. After 80% installed on Vista Business, said browser needed to be closed and locked up.
Repeated tries gave same result. 4 hours with 3 techs. Computer locked up several times during process, evidentally for them and for me. All Symantec material was removed from computer. 3rd tech told me was a hardware problem, not Symantec problem. But I accessed my account, and reinstalled what I guess is version 2 of Norton 360, and apparently is working okay. But it is hard to know, as I am not knowledgeable like may people in this community.
These two articles can help you out if you want to proceed with version 3 of N360. One is for the removal tool to help prepare your system for the clean install; the other is the full download of the install file so everything is there to work with.
I don’t have the knowledge to do this correctly. In any case, since evidentally the first two techs couldn’t do this correctly, and then I was apparently wrongly advised it was a hardware problem, it’s hard to believe an unsophisticated user like myself could do this. Thanks.
Just got a chance to get back to my mothers PC. Downloaded the budump.exe and Norton Removal tool. Did as they recommend and ran budump.exe and then the Norton Removal Tool twice as recommended to totally remove the currently Running Norton 360 Version 2.0.
Downloaded the new version 3.0 and once updated and restarted as asked I ended up in the same place as before where Norton 360 does not run nor will IE or Firefox. There is no Norton icon in the system tray either. This time I decided to look at the process list and kill some of the processes that were hung and had to be terminated with the 'End Now' button during the very prolonged shutdown process when the computer had this problem before. My main target were the dldo processes and Corel Photo Downloader. Doing some net research the dldo processes belong to her Dell printer so I left them alone.
After some process disabling experimentation, I found that if I don't allow the Corel Photo Downloader to load at startup (using MSConfig) then Norton 360 V3 will run properly and the browsers will launch. Launch Corel Snapfire Plus and Norton 360's main program screen nor the browsers will launch until the Corel executable process is killed.
Corel Snapfire Plus was apparently preloaded on her Dell Inspiron laptop.
There is some collision that goes on between the Corel Snapfire Plus software and one of the more recent updates to Norton 360 V3. I leave that to a more knowledgeable computer sleuth to figure out the details of that collision. Since she does not use the Corel software I am uninstalling it from her system and that will hopefully end her problem.
Disabling and removing the Corel software from her Dell Inspiron Laptop running XP has allowed the fully updated version 3 of Norton 360 to run on her machine just fine and the browsers can launch and connect to the internet now.
I decided to look at another discussion list and found a long discussion under "Norton 360 v3 various issues" and there has been a number of programs that are having problems with the new version 3.
The following link takes you to a list of current fixes for software that will not run after N360 V3 is loaded:
<< .... there has been a number of programs that are having problems with the new version 3. >>
Just for background, and not disputing that this may be so, but if you do a search on PowerDesk or Context Menu you will find some threads starting last year when N360 V1 was upgraded to V2 which began with it all being the fault of Norton and ended with the real situation being quite different.
Microsoft introduced a new protocol but did not itself observe it .... Some third party programmers followed Microsoft and did nothing although Norton did follow the new protocol.
Then Microsoft changed and adopted their own current protocol but didn't tell anyone. Result: The Context Menu was broken by the odd man out using the old protocol and when PowerDesk updated with a fix all worked as it should.
More recently the Context Menu was broken again and users here found at least two other programs that were the trigger -- updating one cured the problem; the other no longer existed and so the user found another program and all was well .....
I was in the middle of all this as a new user here in the forums so I saw all this happen.
Anyway lets hope Symantec can resolve it regardless of what the real trigger is.