<p>tried to install software security program today.
Initializing of disk seemed to get stuck. Chatted with customer support person.
She said she’d just download it and install for me.
Big mistake.
Her download kept having problems. three hours worth. she blamed my connection, my banking software, and everything else. she said she’d go into registry to remove software totally and start over.
crashed computer.</p>
<p>I was able to recover internets with system restore, but Microsoft office is busted.
I have the product key. (incidentally, aftr all that, I successfully installed the original program with no more trouble. Grrr for ever looking for help!)</p>
<p>Here’s my question: MS will download me a new Office because I have a valid key. Should I uninstall what I have and do that ? (seems scary). And will whatever the goshdarn rep did to the program re-appear when I do this?</p>
<p>Been at this all day! Seething right now. Any suggestions appreciated!</p>
<p>Call back customer service and ask to speak to a supervisor. If you’re not happy with what the supervisor says, move up the chain. Do not take no for an answer.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what security software were you trying to install, what operating system, and what version of microsoft office?</p>
<p>Am wondering as sometimes some anti-virus/security software suites may have bugs which cause nasty conflicts with the OS and software like some versions of MSoffice.</p>
<p>Honestly, for anyone looking to get an antivirus suite, don’t bother paying money. Microsoft offers an excellent free one (due to a lawsuit they couldn’t bundle it with Windows, and they’re not allowed to give it a preferential position in their “Recommended Software” list) called Microsoft Security Essentials. Other great programs to run occasionally are Spybot, AdAware, and Microsoft Defender.</p>
<p>Agree with RacinReaver. And Garland, now that your computer’s working, make yourself an image backup of the hard drive. Macrum and Paragon are good free programs to use. It’ll save you the trouble of ever having to redo your whole drive (use an external drive for the backup).</p>
<p>Past versions of Norton were notorious for conflicts with windows, Office, and other software packages. </p>
<p>It was so bad with the ones from early-mid '00s that there was much discussion in the computer tech forums about avoiding Norton like the plague and Norton jokes.</p>
<p>Then again, my experience has been that past versions of McAfee tend also to be hit or miss…mainly because end-users fail to keep up with weekly antivirus definition updates or continuing to run it after the one-year subscription they got with their home PC ended. </p>
<p>The current versions of Norton seem to run fine on my 64-bit machines. However, I prefer running avast on my 32-bit machines as running the 32-bit version of Norton really seems to bog those systems down even when there’s plenty of hardware resources for the given operating system/configuration. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s fine for average users who already know how to be a bit proactive about avoiding certain types of sites/downloads notorious for viruses/malware.*</p>
<p>For those who aren’t, MSE tends to be inadequate from seeing countless deeply infected machines with MSE installed. </p>
<ul>
<li>I.e. Porn sites.</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>Probably because of concerns from experiences like the ones I saw as someone who deals with disinfecting virus/malware infected machines and the fact MSE probably doesn’t provide enough features for universities/institutions. The latter tend to prefer corporate editions of antivirus software not only for the greater feature set, but also for the paid site license for the perceived greater ability to hold the antivirus vendor liable in case anything goes wrong*.</p>
<ul>
<li>Several law school/lawyer relatives/friends have mentioned that if there’s no consideration for a given service(i.e. A given service is provided for free without payment or any exchange of good/service benefiting the provider), there’s no effectively enforceable contract in case something goes wrong. With few exceptions, one cannot sue someone for a product/service provided as a gift or for free.</li>
</ul>
<p>Norton is a mess and yes, Microsoft Security Essentials is quite good- run it along with MalwareBytes and you’re good to go. Eldest son is a “problem fixer” at Microsoft so he’s my adviser!</p>
<p>Agree that Malwarebytes is excellent. Loved the free version so much I picked up the paid version which provides an active shield which proactively stops most malware from being loaded whereas the free version can only deal with it after the fact. </p>
<p>As for MSE, it’s good for those who are already careful and will only be using it at home. However, no institution will use it as an institutional antivirus due to need for greater feature set and concerns over liability which causes them to prefer paid solutions as opposed to free ones.</p>
<p>@garland: Sorry to hear that! That shouldn’t have happened. I am Vineeth and I am from the Norton Support team. Do you remember a Case ID for the support session you had with us? If so, please send it to me so I can check the details.</p>
<p>Malwarebytes is aimed more at spyware. That’s the sort of stuff that sits there and scans everything you’re doing, maybe pops up random ads, and just does junk that’ll slow your computer down. Norton, historically, is more of an anti-virus, which is a whole different set of issues. It might let you disable some of Norton’s features which might be a good idea, anyway. I’ve found most antivirus programs to slow my computer down more than they’re worth. I’ll usually just install it occasionally whenever I think there’s a problem, update the definitions, run my scans, and then either uninstall it or leave it to only start up when I tell it to. This is especially true on laptops where you tend to have more frequent start ups where the constant scanning of an antivirus becomes really obnoxious.</p>
<p>Vineeth–wow, you guys saw this. Impressive…I think. To answer your question, I do not know the case number.</p>
<p>I’m mostly going to put this behind me. But I will say that please don’t let your techs go into the actual computer registry. Too much damage could be done. My device manager was gone, the Office license was invalidated, keyboard malfunctioned. I am very glad that an MS tech was able to go in there and recognize all the errors (as far as I can tell. but he obviously had way more knowledge about what he was doing.)</p>
<p>RR–to be honest, I’ve never had a problem with the actual workings of Norton. It does not slow my computer and I have no virus or malware issues since I used it. So the program is fine in my opinion, but the support was the problem.</p>
<p>Thank you for your feedback! I will certainly bring this to the attention of the concerned team and will make sure that our technicians do not play with the registry unless it is really required.</p>