Atleast 2 earlier times when I've been in contact with the support I've asked if the product will still work if I run out of subscription days and I've gotten the answer that yes it will, only the updates will stop working.
Not long ago, my sister was about to run out of days so she paid and waited for the confirmation with a new code, but she didn't get it before she ran out of days.
And guess what, NIS2009 completely stopped working. I called the support and told what had happened and what they had told me before and they still claimed that it should keep on working and that something must've gotten wrong with the program and suggested a reinstallation.
During that call I found out that they had registered her payment several days earlier and they blamed not sending the notification on a "glitch" in the system.
They sent out the new code and information about reinstalling and I thought, ok it's just a one time problem.
Now the exact same thing happened to me, I paid, waited for the notification and today NIS2009 completely shut down.
I called the support, they still claimed that only the updates should stop working, and I found out that Symantec had recieved my payment 7 days ago, without sending me the new code.
So both of us got unprotected against virus after the subscription days ran out, but luckily Windows firewall jumped in so atleast we didn't lose that protection.
You should either make sure that the support people know what the h they are talking about, or if they do, stop telling lies to the customers. And send the new code right away when you have registered the payment instead of waiting over a week!!
I wonder how many NIS users have gotten unprotected because of the bs they have been told by Symantec!
Hopefully it was only a flaw in the 2009 version so the same doesn't happen in NIS2010.
And personally I can say that if it happens again, I won't be one of your customers any more!!