markd301's Full Review: Symantec Norton Internet Security 2003 (10024885) ...
I still have a 400 MHz PC that came with Windows 98. It is plenty fast enough for home use, such as read e-mail, pay bills and surf the web. I like to just stick with the original operating system until I buy a new PC so that it will continue to be fast.
One day I noticed that something was being downloaded to my PC when it should have been idle. Time to get a firewall. I have bought other Norton products like WinFaxPro and have had no trouble. We use Norton Antivirus at work on Windows 2000. Norton Internet Security 2003 had a Firewall, Antivirus, Popup Blocker plus a few more features. It seemed like it was worth the $70. The web site did say that it ran on Windows 98.
I downloaded the program from the Symantec web site and paid by credit card. I had some trouble installing the Live Update, but eventually got everything working. After a week or two, I started getting errors from Microsoft DLLs while running Internet Explorer 6.0 (IE). All IE windows would close after 10 web pages. Sometimes, my PC would completely lock up and I would have to push the reset button. I basically couldn’t use IE any more because I never knew when it was going to abort.
I contacted Symantec through their free web e-mail support. I was not about to pay $30 for telephone support on a $70 program. To find the free support, go to www.symantec.com, click support, home office, start free online support. You will go through a lot of questions and eventually find the free e-mail support.
They recommended that I download lots of Windows updates from the Microsoft site http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. After many hours of downloading and installing updates, the problem was still there. They then referred me to links on their web site for doing a clean boot, optimizing system resources and changing how NIS loads at startup. That didn’t work either.
The only thing that did work was to disable ALL NIS programs – Firewall, Antivirus, Popup Blocker and the NISUM.EXE program that runs at startup. I disabled NISUM.EXE using the MSCONFIG.EXE program that comes with Windows 98. I had no more problems with IE unless I tried running any of the NIS programs again.
What this tells me is that it wasn’t the Microsoft DLLs that were causing the problem, it was the NIS software. I sent e-mail to online support explaining what I had found. I also stated that I had spent 20 hours trying to solve the problem and I was not willing to spend any more time on it. I requested a refund.
They sent a reply apologizing for the trouble I experienced and a link to a page where I could get a refund. Refunds are available within 60 days of purchase. You submit a Letter of Destruction stating that you have completely removed the software from your system. They refunded the money to my credit card a few days later.
Even though the software didn’t work on my PC, I was happy with the customer support and got my money back without any trouble. I am a software engineer and know that it isn’t easy getting a program to work on multiple versions of Windows. Maybe when they said it runs on Windows 98 they meant the SE version.
I am now using Sygate Personal Firewall and AVG Antivirus that I downloaded from zdnet.com for free. I also use the Google popup blocker. I am able to surf the web again for hours without a single error.
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