In the last year both Trend Micro, who supplies my PC-cillin security software, and Symantec, who supplies Hunky Husband's Norton 360 security software, have stated in our agreements that the software is licensed for installation on a maximum of three computers. Oh, happy day! Not counting our five PDAs, HH and I have three working computers. My thinking, since men are notoriously reluctant to accept a "feminine" product, was to allow my subscription to PC-cillin to lapse on 7/19/2008, and install HH's Norton 360. Let me lead you down the path that was to save me $50/year on security software charges.
1) Uninstalled PC-cillin and checked that Windows personal firewall was still turned "off".
2) Installed Norton 360 from CD.
3) Went online to register installation. Registration failed. Was notified by Symantec to uninstall Norton 360 and reinstall it.
4) Repeated steps 2 & 3 a few times.
5) Contacted the Symantec service site and met one of their ITs (in India, of course) in a chat room to discuss the issue. After several rounds, the IT asked to take remote control. Fine. I've allowed remote access/control of my computer innumerable times over the last 20+ years and know how it works. IT expresses dismay that I use dial-up. Instead of taking time to download the software (which would take a few hours by dial-up), he would send me a free CD of V2 of the software (I had installed V1). Not convinced that this would fix the problem, I said "Fine".
6) While awaiting arrival of the CD, I activated the Microsoft personal firewall and limited online visits to sites that I trusted (Red Cross sites, Computer & Software sites, Typepad blogs) and used web mail to pick up/send emails so that nothing got downloaded onto my machine from a strange email that might slip through Earthlink's filters.
7) Five days after the chat, the CD arrived. Eagerly, I turned the firewall "off" and told the Norton 360 software to do its thing.
8) Its thing turned out to be much easier than what I had gone through--it proceeded to automatically repeat Steps 2 & 3, several times. I killed the sucker!
9) Backed up my data files on CDs, which took a few hours.
10) Reinstalled PC-cillin.
11) Downloaded updates to PC-cillin (about 6 hours of download time).
12) Renewed my subscription to PC-cillin which, including a CD of V2008 (to preclude about 10 hours of download time), came to $49.95. Let's see how that worked out: I did not save myself $50/year and I spent about 50 hours. Wunderbar!
Lest you fault Symantec for my problems installing Norton 360, I tell you that the problems were most probably of my own making. When HH gave me this machine last Fall, I uninstalled his Norton software. I vaguely recall that some piece of software (Norton ? Windows? most likely PC-cillin?) asked me a question at some point, which I answered in a way to save me the most time. I was warned by the software that if I did not change my answer, I would never again be allowed to do something (install Norton?) The same thing happened, in some fashion, with Flash. That is why I cannot play video streams from online. My impatience costs me!
Let's end on a positive note. The GOOD news is that, after operating all of that time with only the personal firewall protecting me from malicious downloads, I ran a scan of my hard drive. There were no Trojan horses, no viruses, no phishes, no nothing. That is one nice thing about dial-up. One is fairly safe with minimal security, if one is careful. The same may be true for other forms of access--I don't know. Try it at your own risk!
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