Norton hassle

[windy1]

Running XP Pro with SP2. Just installed NAV 2005 from CD but keep getting error LU1812 ( symantec redirector etc ) when running live update. Tried all Norton web fixes except the advice to deploy Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.

Questions

Never used this utility before . How drastic is it and will it screw up existing progs which are working fine?

MS download site shows latest version of the Cleanup is Aug 04, but surely SP2 came after that time. Sounds like trouble there?

The rest of live update runs fine, so why don't I just ignore this redirector thingy. What does it do anyway? (Wouldn't you expect a new program not to redirect you anywhere, but take you to the right place first time !)

[Irish Steve]

XP Pro SP2 & NAV2005.

Thought.

Are you running the NAV install in Administrator mode, it will get VERY upset while installing if it's not got admin level access to the drive. Depending on how the user profiles are set up, it might be unable to get to areas it needs to go to. Another similar issue is that if you run LiveUpdate in a "user" account, it will barf, it has to have admin to run that, and it's no good doing a switch user to an admin account and leaving the user still signed on, as it will then barf because it can't share the file correctly, the first user, with the lower access level, has the files open Read Write, so the admin user is restricted, so again, it barfs.

I too have to admit to having had a bucket load of hassle with Norton, Internet Security it might be, Internet killer is probably more accurate, it's slow, needs massive downloads almost every week, constant reboots after install, and even after all that, it crashes way too often for my liking, ccapp is a regular black hole, and requires a reboot to get the system back on line, but Symantec seem to think that it's acceptable!


My thought is that Symantec has effectively become a sub division of Microsoft with all the negatives that implies. When Norton first came out, his product very effectively filled the gaping holes that Microsoft either could not or would not fill. Now, they seem to be so much in bed with each other, the quality control and cutting edge of Symantec's products have gone. Ghost is the same, at one time it was possible to do all sorts of things to partitions with it, now, it's little more than a backup tool, and to do anything useful with an NTFS partition, you also need partition magic as well.

Next thought.

Do you (did you) have an earlier version of NAV on the machine, if you do/did, was it uninstalled before trying to load 2005.

If it wasn't, you may have to uninstall 2005, then reinstall the old one, and then uninstall the old one before reinstalling the 2005 versions. In addition, you may have to download a cleanup utility to make sure that the old version has trule been removed, in some cases it leaves leaks all over the place that then confuse the new install.

The knowledge base has some articles on this one, as the newer versions get very upset if they are installed over an old version, even though it say's it's upgrading, there are clearly some holes and issues with it.

Is there a firewall running. If there is, you may be better to turn it off while you install NAV. That may mean removing the internet access if you're on a always on system, just to be completely sure that your security is not compromised. That's the biggest hassle of all of this, you need access to the web to find out why it's not working, and the very act of accessing the web with a potentially insecure machine may lead to even worse levels of hassle if a virus or other attack happens while the mess is being sorted. It's scary how long it takes to get to the right area of Symantec's support, and if NAV and the firewall are off for that time, the machine can be very vulnerable indeed.

Hope that helps some

Cheers

Steve

[windy1]

Mike, Steve

Thanks for comments:

I am always in admin mode as it is my laptop and no-one else gets to it.

I have tried all advice on the knowledge base except the ms cleanup. I have lost count of the number of times I have uninstalled and re-installed. Initially, I found that it would not de-install completely so I followed the knowledge base to clean up all the leaks. It took 2 hours - how on earth ordinary folk are supposed to go through these detailed routines escaped me. They are OK for the semi-literate (like me) but are far too complex and time consuming for your average user.

So, in summary. Admin mode, full deinstall/purge, firewall off, and still error on the redirector.

Maybe a symantec insider will enlighten us as to what the redirector does and can it be ignored