OT - problems with Norton post SP2 download

Strikes me that computering still has some way to go before the technology becomes invisible and just does its job. At the moment it is about where motoring was between the wars - having moved out of the 'enthusiast' phase where it was an end in itself and rapidly heading toward becoming an everyday necessity - but it would still have been unwise to venture forth without at least knowing how to change a plug!

Presumably this is for Windows XP, Kim? Windows 2000 is up to SP4 and quite a few extra security downloads on top of that.

One thing that I wouldn't do is put firewalls and anti-virus software all in one basket, Norton's has enough troubles keeping its AV software updated without adding more problems to the load.

Firewalls 'are' useful, probably more so now than AV software. While we have had no AV alerts for a couple of years, the firewall gets many hundreds if not thousands of access attempts, especially at home where we have ADSL.

Having a router in the circuit is also an extra barrier if you have a modem and more than one machine on a network.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Actually, when you think of what we are actually doing with it, and that an email that I send to Tim in the 'states is there at his screen almost as soon as I have hit return, certainly within 15 seconds, then I can forgive most problems!

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Indeed, it is well worth the hassle, but I do look forward to a time when that hassle is much reduced!

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 14:59:52 +0100, "J K Siddorn" wrote:

I've had a nightmare over the last couple of days with my machine (W98SE, with AVG antivirus & Zone alarm firewall). Something went haywire on Monday, machine crashed with a blue screen & wouldn't start up again. Started with a boot disk, which somehow put the hard drives into the wrong order (All the windoze stuff was now on the D drive). Sorted that out by fiddling with the bios settings. Still wouldn't go except in safe mode, things were pointing to something in either the AVG or Zone alarm having been corrupted. Finally got things started by uninstalling AVG when in safe mode, then going through the registry & deleting all references to AVG. Now everything works,after among other things at least five re-installs of W98, except that I can't access the web itself (Opera or Internet Exploder - both appear to try but get nowhere, except that I seem to be able to reach one or two sites after first switching the machine on. I did manage to download the latest AVG this morning, but nothing since). Email & newsgoups are working OK. I can't open Zone Alarm, or uninstall it, or install a new version, as trying each of those produces a message along the lines of: C:\Windows\temp\VINIT.DLL not verified" I've tried deleting that file & other related ones, but they magically reappear. I can only think that it's Zone alarm which is blocking my web access, although it's not visibly open. It's infuriating that I can't do a web search to see if it's a known problem

Any bright ideas before I format the C: drive & do a clean install of Windoze?

Please no-one suggest Norton instead of Zone alarm, I've had troubles with their stuff in the past which have put me right off :-(

Cheers Tim

Tim Leech Dutton Dry-Dock

Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs

Can't you get Task manager to stop or at least show you the processes running (Ctr+Alt+Del in Win2kPro) If you had ZA running you could then halt the process, or do a safe boot and not let it start up.

Betetr still get out of Windows 98 altogether, it's past its sell-by date.

Definitely not, keep the two functions separate as I have already mentioned.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

May be a good idea in any case, as long as all your files are backed up. If in doubt I use ghost.

Spybot does the same job and attempts to identify what the running tasks are, most are best prevented from loading and only called when needed.

I have yet to be convinced of the advantage of later offerings, especially with regard to registration details.

I now rely on the router mac and zone alarm, plus a bayesian filter before agent, which itself does not default to launching attachments.

AJH

except that I can't access the web itself (Opera

Tim,

It may be a DNS server error, possible not even your PCs fault at all. Try typing an ip address directly into the address bar. eg

If that works try a different dialup connection. You can create one with this phone number. 0845 609 1370. You can use any username and password.

Good luck,

Matt

Win98 is very stable and much less susceptible to attack than win2K but it needs to be up to date. MS no longer have all the old updates on their site but a Google search will turn them up. I abandoned Norton as it seemed to cause as many problems as it cured. The latest versions of ZA, AVG and Win 98 coexist very happily for me but the settings in ZA are a bit less obvious in the latest version and it needs a few changing. just my 2p Roland