Norton Internet Security 2006

[ddrueding]

That's my problem, in a nutshell. I get to the machine, and it's showing an error message on startup:

ccApp.exe - Entry Point Not Found

The procedure entry point
??0?$basic_ios@DU?char_traits@D@std@@@std@@IAE@XZ could not be located in the dynamic link library MSVCP60.dll.

Then norton shows that it's "Intrusion Detection" component hasn't started. When I try to start it, an error appears telling me to re-install. After re-installation, nothing has changed.

Help?

 

[Mercutio]

I'd say you ought to know better than to install that piece of shit, but someone is probably holding a large-caliber handgun to your head while you do it, or it's part of some unpleasant gang initiation ritual or something, right?

Anyway, you need to start all over again. That means finding the 10 page long list of files, folders and registry settings that need to be deleted from the machine before attempting another reinstall. Symantec writes uninstall routines that you can trust about as much as a Catholic priest at an altarboy convention.

Once you've finished your unholy task, remember to douse the computer in holy lighter fluid before striking the Match of Purification. The Installation Media may be left in the drive or it may be removed (handle only with barbeque tongs) and shattered in the Microwave of Redemption. If any part of your body is made impure by the touch of liveliest awfulness, be sure to hold the afflicted body part in boiling water for at least two minutes prior to calling your doctor.

 

[Mercutio]

It should come as no surprise, but I'm going to say it anyway:
I believe that it is actually unethical to install Norton Internet Security. I've run across spyware/malware programs that have more useful functionality and aren't so difficult to remove.

As an IT professional, you should be willing to inform - forcefully if need be - your customer of other possible options, or to refuse the work.

 

[ddrueding]

As an IT professional, you should be willing to inform - forcefully if need be - your customer of other possible options, or to refuse the work.

I would, unfortunatly this customer has a payed-up licence through next year, and won't switch in the meantime.

 

[ddrueding]

Well, complete removal of all reg keys and program directories didn't fix it. I'm beggining to suspect that it's an incompatability with the version of the MSVCP60.dll file that is part of the OS. Doing a search for the file on my computer shows the following locations:

C:\i386
C:\I386\ASMS\6000\MSFT\VCRTL
C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
C:\Documents and Settings\Temma Maltz\Local Settings\Temp\NIS9\Support\Redist\MSRedist
C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.Tools.VisualCPlusPlus.Runtime-Libraries_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_x-ww_ff9986d7
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Folders

As well as musicmatch and acrobat.

Any more thoughts?

 

[Tannin]

One of the nice things about Norton AV ... er ... excuse me, I meant to say all of the nice things about Norton AV .... is that it won't install unless every last vestige of any previous installs is removed.

Now, I hear you ask, how can this be a nice thing? I mean (you object) here you have a program that won't uninstall and it won't install over the top so you can't do anything at all, right? Except spend hours going cross-eyed and deleting absolutely anything you can find in the registry that seems to have ever been poluted by it? And this is good?!

Well, yes, actually. You see, the Norton products make such a godawful mess of the registry and the folder structure and uninstall so incredibly badly that ... wait for it ... Symantec actually have a whole set of downloadable tools designed to do nothing else except the one thing calculated to make me and Merc and anyone else who knows anything at all about computers delieriously happy ..... viz, delete every last vestige of all Norton products!

These free downloads from Symantec are quite possibly the best software in the universe!

Uninstall Norton!

Completely!

Forever!

A clean system, brought to you by Symantec! Whoever woulda thunk it?

Google for "norton removal tool" or similar. If you can't find the right one (there are several), sing out, I'll have it at the office. (In fact, it's on every single one of our utility CDs, right there alongside the other utterly essential must-have de-toxing tools like Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Hijackthis.)

 

[Tannin]

As an IT professional, you should be willing to inform - forcefully if need be - your customer of other possible options, or to refuse the work.

I would, unfortunatly this customer has a payed-up licence through next year, and won't switch in the meantime.

Don't force the customer to switch to something that actually works. Leave the customer entirely 100% free to make his own informed decision.

Note well: that's an informed decision. I don't mean the nitty-gritty of the technical faults NAV suffers from. (Hey, who has time to cover that list - you'd be still tallking when the lights went out.) I mean the executive summary of what it means to the customer. Something like this:

Scenario A: I remove NAV, sort the system out, and do my level best to reinstall it and make it work properly ... er .. I meant to say "make it work as well as it ever does, which is roughly equivalent to making it work as well as a flea writes nuclear physics textbooks". Time till completion: approx 1 week (I have other work I can't neglect in the meantime). Cost: around $150US (because it's going to take me ages and I'm not prepared to dirty my hands with this job for less than that).

Scenario B: I remove NAV and install an alternative product that is better in every way. Time till completion: 1 day. Cost: around $90US, including the alternative AV product subscription.

Then, let him tell you what he wants you to do.

Works every time.

 

[Mercutio]

The Norton Removal tools never work. N E V E R. I've tried them dozens of times for dozens of different products, and each time I've had to do the manual removal.

Anyway, tell your customer to sit down, shut up and install something decent like ZoneAlarm if he has to have a Nonstandard Firewall Bullshit Program.

 

[Tannin]

Merc, I use them all the time. Like, on average, maybe 5 times a week. They work for me ... oh ... it would be less than once a month that I have problems, maybe every second month or so on average. So call it better than 95% success rate with them.

What are we doing different?

Here is how I do it:

Boot into safe mode. Clean out the startup with MSCONFIG. Install and run Ad-Aware, Spybot, Hijackthis, and (usually) Ewido. Make as many passes as required to get the system reasonably clean. Then boot in normal mode and run the removal tool.

Seriously, they nearly always work. I can't believe how much easier life has become since I started using them sometime back around the middle of last year.

 

[Mercutio]

Been there, done that.

Maybe because I'm more often dealing with corporate versions of the poxy Symantec Malware? I hardly ever see "Norton" Antivirus, but I support Symantec AV Corporate several places (which, oddly enough is not usually the problem), and of course I hand out Ghost licenses like candy.

I seem to have the most issues with some braindead idiot wanting to install NIS or Systemworks on an otherwise perfectly good computer. Maybe the interaction of multiple forms of Symantec wretchedness leads to additional complications.

 

[Tannin]

Could be, Merc. I hardly ever see the corporate one - maybe only once a month - always the retail pox. Oddly enough, the last one I had (on Friday) was a corporate which wouldn't uninstall because it was passworded, and the removal tool wouldn't touch it because it insisted I use add/remove programs instead, which I couldn't use because it was passworded.

So I booted in safe mode, brute-force removed the entire folder out of program files, rebooted and tried the tool again. Worked first time.

But maybe I just got lucky.

 

[Sol]

I've seen the symantec provided tools clean the corporate SAV software off a couple of PCs with no trouble at all, but I've also seen a scheduled upgrade to a new version of SAV go so horribly wrong that not only could those tools not save the system but it took a struggle with a couple of live linux distributions just to save some of the data from the doomed machine.

I'd have to concur that SAV removal is a little more hit and miss than NAV...

 

[ddrueding]

I just used their web-based removal tool and it worked perfectly. I'm nearly certain that there is nothing still running on my PC. The system on a reboot is using 90MB of RAM (compared to the 160MB+ with NAV on it). Right now, even with FF and AVG running it's only using 130MB of it's newly-found 768MB.

 

[time]

You got a lot of nerve, asking here about how to install malware like Norton Insecurity.

Still, at least you ended up disinfecting the victim's machine, so the loss of just one gonad should be sufficient.

 

[Handruin]

Welcome back time! Hope all is well.