Yeah, that looks like exactly like my experience with support. They have people there… they are just completely useless, can’t actually help and… I mean, that seems to be their entire job.
Just string things along as long as possible and hope you eventually just go away. That way, Norton can advertise “24/7 support,” but the catch is, it isn’t worth having, because they don’t train anyone to know anything.
My question is… Why are they removing PAID FEATURES?? These things don’t disappear by mistake. It is no coincidence that they SELL more online backup space.
Point of interest everyone I’m sure is aware of. Version 24.xx was released last September, now we are on version 25.xx, so we are now approaching the six month windows since that 24.xx release. NOTHING, has changed regarding user functionality at this point so the reality is. Its not going to. BETA continues. Reality is plain and simple. The Avast engine is a dog’s breath in regard to user transparency, full of false detections and generally scaring the life out of everyone using it, for the sake of marketing, nothing more. We have to then wonder, where, it all leads. Reality and logic say, more marketing, less and less properly trained support people, and continued gathering “telemetry” to do whatever. Telemetry is my data. Your data. EULA’s are chocked full of legal jargon making it legal to gather that data IF, you use said product. Companies are making billions on OUR data, our dime never comes. Matters are worse here in the US, we have the worst lack of consumer protections on the planet. Zero recourse in almost 100% of every issue.
Its like sucking the well dry and leaving that last drop of oil out to the highest bidder. Who will be able to afford it or want it? Data breaches run rampant, companies don’t report said breaches for months, sometimes ever. When they’re caught up with, they get a slap on the wrist fine. Until the next breach happens showing the issues leading to said breach never got corrected. Nothing patched. Lather, rinse and repeat. In that regard I often wonder who is aiding who for that cycle to continue?
like many others on this topic, i’ve been using Norton products since DOS days, close to 40 years maybe, and I’m done with them.
Effing up the backup system is the last straw. They are treating their customers as if they are as stupid as their own management.
Now to reload an old enough version to recover old NAS backups and convert them to some other more professional backup system.
After removing the capability to perform a local back to a Network Drive when V24 came out in Sept 2024 and after multiple complaints and partial restoration of backup capabilities in releases after Sept 2024 and many frustrating interaction and obfuscation by Norton Support my system was updated to the version below in the last few moments.
This is great news, RobertS. Thank you for your diligence on kicking them all this time.
Now I may throw a major monkey wrench into this. In the screen shots, I don’t see a Restore function. I have years of backup files. Can it open existing backups from the previous version? If I cannot restore my existing backups, this is only half done.
I also would prefer using my existing backups instead of creating new ones.
It looks like we have a solution. Thanks to everyone that contributed to this and forced Norton to realize their mistake. Also, thanks to RobertS for the tenacity of keeping this on Norton’s radar.
The backup on local drives was redone now with version 25.
However, there comes no reminder on the Norton systray icon anymore. With the 22 version the systray icon showed a red dot in its rght down corner to remind you after a certain time to run a backup. Why Norton cancelled this very usefull annunciator ?
Yeah, they have also removed the ability to schedule backups at specific times. That’s not good either. I don’t want mine to run every 24 hours as that just has data grow for no reason with all of the metadata it stores. I also don’t want to have to run backups manually. I mean WTF.
There are a ton of features in the UI that sucks really bad. For instance, there is no place to review all operations and when they last ran as in Administrative Setting/Background Tasks. They also have removed the ability to schedule tasks all in one place as in Tasks Scheduling under Settings. A total PITA. These are just gripes compared to the backup issues.
You are right. Norton’s local backup system has become a user’s nightmare. In the touch panel you cannot see that the ‘local backup’ is hidden under ‘cloud backup’. In the previous version, an existing ‘backup’ was always overwritten to the current version. This was lightning fast; about 2 minutes for 30 GB backup volume. Now it takes more than 1 hour and overwriting no longer takes place. There is also no warning if there is not enough space on the local drive. Worse still, it even displays ‘Backed up to external drive’, although only some of the selected files/folders were actually backed up. Norton should have been aware of all this since the end of 2024 and I’m beginning to doubt Norton’s competence as the No. 1 virus protector. Have the old professionals there perhaps been replaced by computer gamers?
Fortunately, my long-term subscription ends in mid-April 2025 …
Yep, I reverted my one machine I tested on back to version 22. I have zero issues with 22 and it does not try to upgrade. They are trying to code to the lowest common denominator. SoulAsylum’s post rings true on just about all major software now. Even MicroSuck has stupidized Windows.
and then on
as indicated by the green arrow and I see that my Network drive is an option for a backup location.
button noted in the screen shot is a RESTORE button
