In NIS-09 update 16.5, Miscellaneous Settings has a new setting: "Automatic Tasks Delay".
According to the help file:
"Tasks Delay lets you specify Automatic Tasks Delay duration for specified programs in your PC that run automatically when you turn on your computer. It does not delay Norton Internet Security protection. You can specify Automatic Tasks Delay duration for a period of 1 minute to 10 minutes. The default duration is 10 minutes."
Is this referring to programs set up in the "Task Scheduler"?
Shouldn't this have an "OFF" setting, instead of just 1 to 10 minutes?
It seems odd that a new "option" doesn't appear to really be "optional". It's "configurable", but can it be turned off?
No; can not turn this off, per se. The delay is for all Norton Automatic tasks. The reason is that updating is one of these tasks; trying to download updates while the computer is booting could cause many problems with some systems startups and network interface initalizations. Having no delay on the Automatic tasks would also cause a huge delay in booting your system. If you don’t want automatic Norton tasks to run, you would have to turn off the individual tasks (auto live update, idle time scanning, etc.). These are not tasks in Windows Task Scheduler; just internally handles Norton background tasks. (A little jumbled in the oreder of answering but I hope that clears things up.)
The help file says "specified programs in your PC", not Norton Automatic tasks. I agree that a NIS update would cause problems at boot-up, but I thought Norton had that under control already.