Norton Antivirus (NAV) 2009 Causes Explorer to Freeze copying files over the network

Since the November 2008 (around the end of the month, if memory serves), I started having a problem on my Vista 32-bit machine running Norton Antivirus 2009.  If I download a file (most or perhaps always a PDF) from the Internet, create a PDF with my scanner, etc. and try to move it from my local hard drive to a network drive (Linux machine running Samba) via a "right-click, cut, right-click-paste" operation, Explorer and Norton will both freeze on me.  I can see the window appear showing the file copy status, it will create a new empty file on the network drive, but nothing gets copied.  Windows reports that both Explorer and "Symantec Service Framework" are not responding.  I have to force my machine to shut down by holding the power button -- normal shutdown will not work.  It tries, but just sits forever.

 

I contacted Symantec support, but I got the usual "it must be fault of some other software".  Prior to this new change in NAV behavior, I had not installed any new software on my PC -- no new software installs for a few months, though I am sure there were updates to existing packages (e.g., Office, Photoshop, etc).  I really doubt there is anything else producing this problem.  I have absolutely no other spyware or antivirus software on my machine -- and it's been running quite nicely for a couple of years now.

 

I opened the NAV 2009 program and turned off the Antivirus, AntiSpyware, and Advanced Protection functions.  I let it run for a couple of weeks and I had no problems at all.  I then turned them back on and I had the problem again.  I then decided to try to systematically figure out what was causing the problem.  I turned off "Advanced Protection", but that did not help.  I just now turned off "AntiSpyware" -- so we'll see how it goes.

 

What makes this frustating is that it does not happen all the time.  Sometimes it will and sometimes it will not.  So, I usually only see the problem once or twice per week -- but that's enough!

 

As I mentioned, it appears to only happen with PDF files, but I might be entirely wrong.  I just cannot recall when this happened with other document types.

 

Symantec has updated the software a few times since then and I am presently running version V16.2.0.7.

 

Does anybody have any ideas why this is happening?

 

Thanks,

Paul