SAV 9 - Symantec AntiVirus 9.0

[EclipseGSX]

According to Symantec Support you should uninstall when upgrading from 7.x to 8.x or  9.0.

I have uninstalled and upgraded over 100 servers and workstations and you will proberly have to run the nav uninstall script on 5-10% of your servers/workstations or uninstall SAV manually.

Is there a switch that tells the installer for SAV 9.0 to uninstall any previous versions first, then start clean? If not, can you point me in the direction for an uninstall script that will cleanly remove any versions <9.0 (7.61 being the earliest)?

Thank you.

[pesko]

Hi EclipseGSX

Get nonav (Symantec uninstall/cleanup tool) from Symantec golden support, you will need it anyway.

Peter

[EclipseGSX]

I ended up just having the batch file call a registry script to clean the old server out of the registry, then copied over a GRC.dat to the client so it configures itself the rest of the way from that.

Now that that's out of the way

Does anyone know the ADDLOCAL command to include the firewall if you're using the 9.0 CE w/ firewall package? Right now I've got this line in my installer:

ADDLOCAL=SAVMain,SAVUI,QClient

What would I add to have it install the Symantec Client Firewall too?

Thanks.

[RogueSpear]

ADDLOCAL=SAVMain,SAVUI,EMailTools,OutlookSnapin,Pop3Smtp,QClient,SCFMain,AntiSpam

This will leave out the help for both clients and the Lotus Notes snap-in for SAV. Note that the "AntiSpam" is necessary for the ad blocking portion of the firewall. There is no antispam functionality however. It seems to be a leftover from Norton Internet Security 2004 code.

This is straight from the Client Installation Guide by the way, which I think you can download from Symantec.

[EclipseGSX]

Thank you for the quick reply. I was wondering about that AntiSpam option. If I don't include it then it shouldn't affect anything, right?

[jmccord]

Pesko,

Could you post a link to that tool. I believe that could be very useful to a lot to folks!

Thanks ,

JM

pesko Posted on Oct 5 2004, 02:04 AM

Hi EclipseGSX

Get nonav (Symantec uninstall/cleanup tool) from Symantec golden support, you will need it anyway.

Peter

[RogueSpear]

@EclipseGSX I must have missed the mail notification that this thread updated. Yes, if you leave out the AntiSpam from your command line nothing will go wrong. You just wont have the adblocking features of the firewall.

[smc1979]

Ok guys I have a rather BIG problem here with SAV.

I have used my custom XP cd on about 20 test computers now.

On EVERY single one of them the page file is messed up. you can set the size but it always resets after reboot.

So I needed to find out what was doing it.

I started the install step by step, once I got to the SAV install and after it was finished the page file would reset ofter reboot.

I then would uninstall SAV and the page file worked again.

I had to make sure it wasnt something else and EVERY time it has been when SAV is installed.

Below is a pick of the page file.

As you see I have it set to 1024x1024

but the actual size isnt that! but if I uninstall SAV it will be.

I have googled this and found other people who have this pagefile problem but no one says if they have SAV or not.

My current build of SAV is 9.0.0.1400

This is the command line that is used to install it at first login

start /wait %systemdrive%\customxpsetupinstall\setup.msi /qb REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS RUNLIVEUPDATE=0

I cant find any info on nortons website on the pagefile.

Since so many here have SAV would you be as so kind as to see how your pagefile is doing and report back?

Maybe I can get this fixed!

[RogueSpear]

I'll be darned. I never noticed this before. Exact same results on the pagefile over here. And I appreciate someone bringing it to my attention. This is just another straw on the camel's back with me and Symantec.

Beware, slightly off-topic rant follows:

If you are running Symantec Client Security V2 (this is the antivirus and the firewall client together), beware of the following KNOWN YET TOTALLY UNDOCUMENTED ANYWHERE BUG:

Try this out. Install SCS2 on a Windows 2000 Server or XP Pro computer. Service Pack level does not matter. Boot the computer and when it gets to the CTRL-ALT-DEL screen do not log in. Now initiate a Remote Desktop session to the computer from another computer. Have you noticed just how pokey everything is yet? Take a look in Task Manager. CCAPP.EXE is pegging the CPU.

Now log in to the computer locally, that is from the keyboard. Now initiate your Remote Desktop session. Everything is fine.

I spent over a month of back and forth e-mail, several extended tech support calls, and several weeks of the most indescribeable aggravation imaginable trying to diagnose why only sometimes would the CPU get pegged. Finally Symantec admitted to me that this is a known issue and in fact is the very reason that they do not officially support the firewall client end of the product on a server OS (since people generally terminal service to a server rather than sit down at it).

So I asked why this was not documented anywhere that even a front line tech could find it, and got no answer. I asked if this was currently a priority issue they were trying to resolve. I was told in so many words that Remote Desktop was a new feature and it would take time to work it out. A NEW FEATURE?!? XP has been out for over THREE YEARS. Windows 2000 Server? What like 5 1/2 years now?

I have often bet my a** on Symantec's products and have recommended their products to countless people, individuals, private businesses, government agencies. I'm starting to feel a little like the guy in my avatar for making those recommendations. And that's too bad, because other than this issue and profoundly terrible documentation, I have always found Symantec's products very competent and of high quality.

[smc1979]

Well since I doubt there is a fix for this I am in a need to replace my antivirus. I want one that works good, so far I have heard good things about AVG.

I would love some recommendations on other antiviruses to use.

Symantec had my support for years now and I to always recommened them to my customers. But now I have been a programmer for 7 years and a Network admin for 9 and a pc repair tech for 10 (I am 25, been doing this for 10 years)

I have picked up a thing or 2, and symantec is slipping thats all there is to it.

I have never used another antivirus so I am rookie when it comes to others, All I know is I hate macfee so much that I wouldnt let my customers install it.

[RogueSpear]

I'm going to be sticking with Symantec for those who already have bought it. The problems simply aren't severe enought to warrant change. It does after all stop viruses, etc. rather well. Also, I forgot to mention that my particular issue with ccapp.exe only rears its ugly head with the firewall client installed. SAV alone does not seem to have this problem.

For those who haven't made the investment (yes there are some), I'll be recommending Trend. Give it a look. It's a pretty nice system they have.

[smc1979]

What about SAV 8.0?

[smc1979]

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

I have to find out How SAV is messing up the page file. Not a single thing on there support site.

It has to be something. I wonder if it is a bug with auto protect?

[smc1979]

Ok I am determaned to fix this.

Heres what I have found out so far. On my system I have 3 drives. I can control and set a page file on any drive without a problem except for the C:\ drive. My pagefile is on E and no problem. But if I try to do anything with C forget it.

So it appers to only affect C:\

[Jito463]

Just to contribute a little to this discussion, I'm using NAV 2005 and my pagefile (on C drive) is not affected. It's set to 1.5GB, and that's the actual size. As for an alternative AV, have you looked at NOD32? I've been playing around with it and I like it. I switched to it initially when 2004 was out because of the extra overhead that 2004 had on my system (soooooo slow), but 2005 is out now and doesn't seem to have the same issues that 2004 had, so right now I'm testing them both (yes, at the same time on the same PC ) and neither one seems to be any worse than the other. I'll probably just stick with NOD32, but we'll see.